Anna Noyes - Goodnight, Beautiful Women

She hung from the train’s handrail like it was a monkey bar. Her shirt rode up, and again I tried not to look at her stomach, at that long, pink scar.

“I love to stretch, you know? Keep fit. You don’t keep fit, you die.” Other people glanced at her as she swung. “That’s my ma’s problem. Sitting in that chair all day, falling asleep with her cigarette burning. She’s asking for it. Cigarette falls and she burns herself. She’s got scars all over her chest.” She laughed. Every time she laughed she coughed, phlegmy and raw. I could see myself reflected in the dark train window across the aisle. For a moment I pretended that she wasn’t with me, and that I was in league with every other polite commuter — work-weary women, tight lipped, in their black or gray coats, with their hands on the mouths of their purses.

“So what’s your problem?” she said.

When I didn’t acknowledge her she just asked me louder, swinging into the seat beside me.

“I don’t have a problem,” I said. When I’m drunk I have a hard time meeting people’s eyes, so I studied her stained white high tops. The shoes must have been one size too small, her big toes straining the fabric. I looked at her mouth. My mom’s front teeth had these tiny chips at the bottom, because when she was little she’d chew on bottle caps. This woman’s teeth didn’t have any chips.

I knew if I were a stranger on the train watching the two of us, I would think she was a homeless woman bothering a nice young girl. Maybe that’s true, I thought. Maybe there’s no home waiting on the other end of the train. I tried to conjure fear, her eerie, familiar face looming close, but fear had drained from me. I lifted my arm and let it flop heavily back into my lap. This was a test of drunkenness I’d always enjoyed, since I was fifteen and stole two swallows of lemon vodka from my grandpa’s cabinet. I lay in bed afterward, lifting my hand and letting it fall, my heavy head lolling on the pillow.

“She’s gone quiet on me, folks,” she said, but this time her voice was low, just for us. She had a spitty way of enunciating her words that drinkers I’ve known share.

“So you’ve got a nice place?” I said.

“Well, it’s a work in progress. But I’d stay there all day if I could. I’m worse than Ma about my house. My house is the only thing in my life that hasn’t betrayed me.”

“I’m sorry to be rude,” I said, “but I forgot your name.”

“Here we’re having a sleepover and you don’t even know my name. It’s Cheryl. Try and remember this time. Like cherry.”

“Like cherries,” I repeated. I couldn’t recall her telling me her name. My mother’s name was Flora, is Flora, if she’s still alive. People called her Flor. She hated the nickname. “I mop floors,” she said. “My name is flowers.” I imagined Mom would like to be renamed Cherry. I thought how I would like a name like that, if only for one night. My name is plain Dora. Door. I imagined knotting a cherry stem with my tongue.

The train lurched back and forth, yanking our bodies. It seemed to be going faster than it should, stations whipping past in seconds, faces blurred. I wondered if the train operator ever went rogue, skipping stops in the dark, dead-end tunnel.

Cheryl had a real house. It was brick and squat, half-covered in dead climbing vine. The lawn was gravel but there was a garden plot, and inside the garden plastic plant containers, the plant’s yellowed leaves spilling out over the snow. There was a swan planter in the garden, its long neck ringed with rust. Bars on the windows, and behind them shadows and flickering light. A face appeared in the window and then disappeared again behind the orange curtain.

Her home was not what I’d expected. I expected a sort of homelessness within a home, yanked-up carpet and leaky ceilings, boxes of delusional junk — plastic horses, clown ashtrays, thirty packs of mop heads — stacked to the ceilings. In reality her home was cold and spotless, lit by scented candles. There was a plastic cover over the couch, and I could see evidence of recent vacuuming in the weft of the carpet. She kept lovebirds, but their cage was clean. One of them made a soft cooing noise in its sleep.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, handing me a glass of scotch that burned my eyes when I drew it near my face. The plastic couch covering crinkled beneath us. From the living room doorway, a teenage boy tipped his baseball cap.

“Good you’re back,” he said. “Dalia was getting weird without you.” He picked at chipped paint on the doorframe, peeling off a single, long strip.

“Good to be back,” she said. “Quit that. Come meet my friend.”

“Nah, happy to meet you but excuse me. I’ve got some stuff going,” and he bowed away, his stomps on the stairs creaking the roofline.

“That’s your son?” I said.

She snorted, then was seized by the same gravelly laughter, slapping my thigh, wiping her eyes. “It’s OK. The first time I seen Tony, I thought he was a little boy, too.”

Tony came back downstairs. His pants were halfway down his hips and he wore a peach windbreaker that swished when he walked. His hair was shiny with gel, glistening in the candlelight. He was maybe four feet tall if he was lucky, but I noticed that his chest and neck were thick with muscle. He had four travel bottles of Listerine in his hand, one between each finger, that he cracked open and poured over ice.

“Go on, Tony. Tell her how old you are.”

“Sweet sixteen,” he said.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” She leaned into me, and said against my ear, “Don’t you worry about the mouthwash. Tony’s out of his mind, but his mind wasn’t so good to begin with. He’s set on drinking that swill. I just wish he’d buy the big bottles then, they’re cheaper. But it’s travel bottles. I don’t think he’s going nowhere.” He swished the drink around his mouth, ignoring her. She raised her voice. “I said, I don’t think you’re going nowhere, baby.”

“I have ears, Cher,” Tony said. “Cheers, ladies.” He drained his glass, and I thought of tiny Toulouse-Lautrec, his absinthe, his women. “Keeps me fresh,” he said. “And sane. Sure beats lighter fluid.”

“There’s booze here, Tony, as always,” said Cheryl. “For adults. That rot gut’s killing you.”

“Not fast enough.” He closed his eyes and rocked his Barcalounger back, pulling an afghan up over his head.

At this point I wasn’t doing so well. It hit me quick. I kept taking little nips of the scotch. I thought about the hotel I never checked into, a bed all my own and white noise, and talking sweet to Gray before sleep. How I could have woken up in the morning, put on a hotel robe and made myself tea, turned the blinds so the light poured in. At this point it felt like I’d never slip into a nicely made bed again, never cup my hands around a hot tea. Like Gray wouldn’t ever love me again.

Gray’s the nicest man. He found a baby mouse under the seat of his truck, and made a whole thing for her, tunnels and tufts of sawdust. He called her Miss Mouse, and petted her with his pinky finger, this big, biker-type guy. He bought me my pink luggage tags. It was easy to think I loved him. I poured myself more drink.

Leaving Gray was the worst thing I could think of, and I was leaning into that darkness. It’s like what I wanted in sex. I got turned on imagining terrible things, the opposite of what I wanted in real life. I would fantasize Gray addicted to heroine. I would fantasize Gray was my grandfather. These images started a tiny, lustful engine chugging away inside me.

“Don’t mind Tony,” whispered Cheryl. “He’s a son of a bitch, but he had to get that way. Kids picked him apart at school. Even now, a grown man, and people still start stuff with him all the time. You see this,” she said, lifting her shirt, pointing at the long, pink scar. “I took a knife for Tony. Someone’s trying to kill Tony, they’re going to have to kill me.” There were little snores coming from beneath the blanket.