Alexandra Kleeman: Intimations: Stories

Yes — since you broke up with me, he said, as if I’d know what he meant.

There was a hazy damp film in his eyes that I recognized from emotions in old movies, projected large on darkened screens.

But, then, you’d hardly remember, would you? he said bitterly.

What sort of person was I? I had a rich store of memories, recent ones and much older ones, their edges rubbed smooth over time. I could remember that I was certified to perform CPR and that I spent summer afternoons in third grade swimming at the quarry, where they sold ice cream bars shaped like the heads of cartoon animals. But I had no idea who this person might be, or who any of the people might be who sat at that table and watched me at the door and claimed to have feelings not exactly for me, but at me. When they smiled, the skin around their eyes and mouths bunched up. I had the distinct sense they were all made of the same material, by someone who owned a big bolt of fleshy cloth. At some point I must have met them, loved them, had fine times. But now all they evoked was a sense of responsibility, a vague and resentful crust.

When I led this new man back to the table, the suitors had already begun to compete in earnest.

I’m her fiancé, one said. I’m her boyfriend, said another. Me too, said the third. They glared at each other across the table, and one took a roll from another’s plate and ate it with anger. There doesn’t have to be a conflict between those things, I said hopefully. They glared at me. Was I going to have to choose? Here, now, in front of all these people, in an exposed and public scene? And if they made me choose, how could I? I didn’t know anything about any of them, in fact I could barely tell them apart. When I looked at them I struggled to note subtle differences in hairstyle, which I cross-referenced to well-known television actors with distinct names that I applied mentally to each suitor for sorting purposes, though I kept these names within quotation marks to remind myself that they were only temporary. “Patrick” “David” “Jason” “Rob.”

“Michael” “Marco” “Carl” “Jack.” Most of the time when I looked at them I couldn’t even see their faces or if they had faces: Was this Love?

I turned to my mother. I wanted to ask: Couldn’t I just choose none of them? Swiveling her head sharply, she gave me a look with her lips tightened. She breathed quickly in and out, nostrils flared. I knew the answer would be no.

The structural similarity of men, and their ability to be represented both as ideal, like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man, and as average. Man being the measure of all things, and therefore a sort of standard and interchangeable unit of length, breadth, intelligence, emotion. We could lay them end to end to measure the distance between the continents, the distance to the moon. We could use them to calculate the weight of the weather, or to buy things at the grocery store. With such an abundance of men, we could gauge anything we chose.

I knew I was behaving badly. I could barely attend to the words on a sonic level. The suitor on the left who kept trying to hold my hand, I had offended by replacing my hand in his with a dinner roll. As they went around the table listing nouns and adjectives that corresponded, somehow, to whole persons, I tried to focus my thinking not on the world of men, the superfluity of men, the community of men, or their etiquette and social contracts, but on men in the particular. Men replete with difference.

All right, said my mother. Who will you be choosing?

Well, he brought flowers, I said, pointing at the one who had brought flowers.

The flowers in their wrapping gave off a trapped and fragrant odor.

It’s true, he said, standing up. And I have to confess, I love you very much. I think you’re perfect for me. But I will tell you something soon that will make you wish you could change your mind.

Why don’t you step into the kitchen to talk this through? my father suggested. It sounds personal.

Okay, I said.

He took me by the elbow and directed me out of the room, turning back briefly to wink roguishly at the table of parents and men that watched us still. I tried to wave or gesture apologetically, as an apology for my own lapse of manners, but with his thumb on the inner joint and his palm wrapped firmly around the back, I found I could do little more than wriggle the limb.

In the kitchen he turned to me and held me close. He brushed a strand of hair from my face and traced the jawline with two long fingers. And you? he asked, smiling softly. How are you feeling, my darling?

I’m confused, I answered.

Yes, yes, he said thoughtfully. You want to know my feelings, my constitution. You want to know that I care about you, you want assurances that I love you, that I think of you deeply, he said.

I thought about this, which seemed less than I actually wanted to know, but also a step toward knowing anything at all. That sounds good, I said.

Well, yes, it sounds good, he replied, chuckling, and it is most certainly true, but it should also be known to you, as it is known to myself, that I came here with the intent to kill you.

What? I asked.

Also, I came here to kill you, he clarified.

He was already rooting around in the kitchen drawers, looking for a knife to push through my chest. It wasn’t the right time to bring this up. Maybe there would be a right time later.

Are you really the only person who doesn’t have a knife, any knife of any sort, in their kitchen? he asked with a note of irritation in his voice.

That’s what it looks like, I said. I meant this in an earnest way, free of sarcasm, but I could tell I was sounding like a bitch.

Listen to you two, you sound like an old married couple, said a suitor who had wandered into the kitchen by accident. He chuckled to himself.

Help me, I said to him.

Help you what? he answered.

Escape from this guy, I said, who is trying to kill me.

Help you, please, is what I was waiting to hear, said the suitor wryly.

A few feet away, my killer looked at his watch.

The man I had chosen was going to find something sharp and come after me and stab me with it. He would not tell me his reasons and in the meantime I would have to tell him mine, my reasons for not wanting to be stabbed. Being stabbed would interfere with the general harmony of my body, with its function, with its status as self-containing vessel, whole and protective. It would interfere with my nervous system and my circulatory system, with my respiratory system and, to a lesser extent, my immune system. It would spring a leak in me. It would leave me open to the world.

The helpful suitor, in the meantime, had located a door to another room.

In here, he said.

Now we were in here. In here was my bedroom, still decorated with the poster of Minnie Mouse that I had owned since middle school. Didn’t I ever get rid of anything?

Lock the door, I said. Like this? he said, wiggling the knob. No, lock it, I said. Lock it so it can’t be opened, I explained further.

He looked distracted. Use the lock, I said, more sharply and loudly.

You don’t have to snap at me, he said. I went to the lock and turned it, but it went around and around. He had found the only room in the house with a nonfunctional lock. I heard footsteps slowly coming up the stairs. They stopped in front of the other bedroom and then the bathroom. Then they stopped in front of my door.

You’d better let me in, he said.

The door’s locked, I said. You’d never get through. I was bluffing. I needed more details to make the lie convincing, but I was all out of words. There was a long silence and I hoped that he would not try the knob.

Well, it doesn’t matter, he said thoughtfully. Because I found a knife, a really sharp one. And it can reach you through the door even if it’s locked. As long as you’re standing here talking to me.