Alexandra Kleeman: Intimations: Stories

I hesitated. Was he bluffing?

Is it a long knife? I asked through the door.

Yes, he said.

I don’t believe you, I said through the door.

Why’s that? he said.

I thought hard. Because I would have heard it when you came up the stairs, I said, hoping that he would let it go. I don’t think that’s true, he said.

Fine, then tap it against the doorknob, I said. Let me hear it.

Clink, clink, he said.

No, I said, I’m not buying it. Okay, he said, but I’m not going to believe that your door is locked either. If it were locked, you wouldn’t be talking to me here. You’d be over at the window behind you, trying to find a way out. I felt a pit in my chest. He was right. I should have been there trying to get out. Instead I had wasted that time trying to talk about the situation. I looked behind me. The man with the short hair was sitting on my bed, reading one of my books.

Then the one I had chosen burst into the room. He was holding an armful of things he had found in the linen closet, which, I assumed, he was planning on using as weapons. First he took an armful of mixed towels and washcloths and attempted to drive them into my back. Then he grabbed a collapsible laundry hamper and threw it in the direction of my head. He picked up some containers of fabric softener and lobbed them at me, and then tried repeatedly to jam a feather duster through my chest. He picked up a long cushion that had come from the couch.

At this rate it would take forever.

He paused, breathing heavily. Okay, look, he said. I give up. I love you and I don’t remember why I’m trying to kill you. Can we just start over? I thought about it. What would we do? I asked. We could watch a movie, he suggested.

I didn’t know what to say. I knew I had a big choice to make. I could let it all go and try to love him, try to trust him, try to make something lasting and good. He obviously had strong feelings for me or about me. And he wasn’t being so bad right now. We could build something sturdy, beautiful. Or I could try to make a dash for the door by crawling under the dining room table.

There was a good chance that he would kill me later, either way.

I dove under the table and scrambled toward the door.

He was still behind me, cursing over the fallen chairs that lay before him and the ten-foot lead I had. But when I reached for the knob, it wouldn’t turn. The lock was on the outside. Who ever heard of the lock for a door being on the outside? It would be up to another, possibly a total and complete stranger, to decide whether you’d ever be allowed to leave.

I knew it was time to run again. He was looking around the room for a better weapon, and he would probably find it. I was so tired. I just wanted to curl up with someone, anyone, even him, and sleep until work on Monday. I wanted to feel someone’s, anyone’s, hands on me, even if it was in that way I hate, the fingers all over my face and jaw.

1

The lobsters were dead in a pile and no longer a danger to us. They were dead in a pile and their shells were not brown not red not blue, but the color of eyes, both yours and mine. We ate them to destroy them but a murmuring came, nevertheless, from their empty carapaces, uncracked. The lobsters with their soft, hissing voices and their words like air escaping a punctured tire. We ate them to destroy them all but suddenly we felt sad and empty and overly full. I turned to you and for the first time told you I was in love. The lobsters were dead in a pile and with a froth on their shells they waited and watched us undress each other. They no longer made the hostile lobster sounds, they no longer threatened us in tiny words with the destruction of our species but waited there dead with eyes that looked little different from the eyes of the living. There on the shore the sun glowed and our love was indestructible, though the sea washed up a strange red froth. The lobsters were in piles and they no longer moved, but some of them did and were alive still and in their movements within the pile they made the heap writhe like water boiling in a pot. We had eaten the lobsters to forestall our own destruction, but it became clear that nothing would. I resettled myself on the sand and leaned back against you, and I closed my eyes, stroking your leg and your large right claw, and I was at rest at last.

2

Holiday in Cape Cod. Lucy spreads the beach blanket on the hot sand, and I jump on to avoid burning the soles of my feet. Susan is slathering sunscreen on the exposed segments of her body, as the gulls circle over us all. We play paddle-ball and catch and the little red rubber sphere traces out a path among us three. I walk down to the seam of shore and sea and practice digging small holes with my feet, holes that fill immediately with water. Does water lurk everywhere, just below the surface, or only here?

I see you farther upshore, fully clothed, watching me carve hopeless marks in the sand. I see a giant lobster, the size of a beach blanket, stranded at the shoreline. It looks a tender pink. You see me seeing the lobster, but you do nothing. The lobster strokes desperately but it only digs itself farther in, its legs slap at the wet dark sand. A common misconception is that a lobster screams when boiled; actually the whistling sound is steam escaping the shell. I go over to the giant lobster, not wishing to touch it. But I take up a stick of driftwood and I will wedge it from the sand, roll it toward the water.

I go over and briefly it stops struggling and in this still moment I think it may be grateful, waiting to be helped. I am nudging the shard under and under its belly to lift and overhead the gulls go wild. Now the blood is gushing, blue blood, frothing all over the gulls that swoop in to eat from its belly, eat of its belly, it was too tender to move and it is emptying quick. My stick still sticks in it, the stick now blue the gulls blue my hands are blue, blue is everywhere I look except you. You are pale and clean, watching me from afar. You look queasy.

That sound: was it a whistle, a hiss, or a scream? From the ocean come thousands upon thousands of lobsters and they are not whistling or hissing or screaming but are whispering one word over and over again, over and over and over.

3

“I’ll have the Lobster in Cream Sauce,” Susan says, tilting her head this way and that at the menu. “But please make certain the seafood is of local origin: we have all traveled too far to dine on imported creatures.”

Plunge two lobsters each weighing two pounds into the boiling water, quickly so they die at once; break off the large claws and set them in the center of a saucepan. Douse in white wine and water, add bay leaves, parsley, and onion and boil for twenty minutes, then pull apart the tails, strain the creamy innards, and fry the remainder in butter. Moisten with lobster stock and add shallots, cream, and brandy. Cut the bodies in slices and lay the shells at the sides, the heads facing up toward you, directly toward you, and pointed away from the sea.

Lucy licks her lips, studies the menu. “I’d like the Lobster à la Bordelaise. With extra wedges of lemon and some Tabasco, please.”

In white wine, with a broth based on lobster flesh, simmered with diced carrots, onions, and potatoes. The lobster must be fresh, unfrozen, caught from cold water that hardens the shell. A lobster is sweetest and full of the richest flesh right before a molt, when the shell is at its most protective. Before it has shed its sense of safety.

And for me? A cup of the corn chowder, with a small salad. Dressing on the side.

Susan looks at me with a combination of amusement and scorn. “Oh, Anne-Marie. Only you would attempt vegetarianism on the Cape, in the summer. Why not live a little, eat the best? After all, you are what you eat.”