Helen Phillips - Some Possible Solutions

I saw her on the bus and she disgusted me even then. She was eating something out of a clear plastic container. Something white and liquidy, yet she was eating it with a fork. I could not tell what manner of thing it was. Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? There were small chunks in the white liquid. I imagined playing Twenty Questions with her. Does it involve tuna? Does it involve mayonnaise? Is it sweet? Is it salty? Is it meant to be served hot? Is it meant to be served cold? Is it kosher? She tipped the container toward herself as she ate and the white liquid started to drain out one corner onto her black nylon tracksuit. Eventually she noticed what she’d done and it brought a smile to her face. Not a smile of shame, I might add. When I once again looked over, she had something unidentifiable in her mouth, clenched between her teeth, about to be torn open. My intestines seized in horror — with what strange food would she confront us now? Slowly, though, I came to see the thing in her mouth for what it was: a small square packet containing a single wet wipe.

But it was not only the white food; also I could tell she was having her period. Her face had that combined flush and pallor, at once swollen and sallow. Such an internal, indecipherable thing, you might think, yet I can always identify a menstruating woman, particularly in the unkind glare of public transportation after dark.

All that, just on the bus, and meanwhile I had problems of my own.

* * *

And then, whenit came time to switch to the train, she too got off the bus. She too climbed up all the many stairs to the elevated station. The outward-bound platform was abandoned but for me and her, the white substance now turning cold and flaky on her black tracksuit, surely giving off the odor of wet wipe combined with tuna fish — though I’d never dare get close enough to smell it myself. Across the tracks, on the inward-bound platform, a pair of teenagers kissed and clung to each other and kept warm. It was the first cold night. I tried not to be inordinately envious, except of the faux-fur-lined hoods on their jackets.

I walked down the platform, away from the kids and away from her. Beneath the elevated station, the most enormous graveyard in the city. It stretched for blocks in every direction, releasing only negligible smells and sounds. A hint of grass in the process of freezing. The hum of a passing truck, miniature echoes among the tallest headstones. It was a grand place, the graveyard, and I liked to look out over it. I liked to search for headstones with my name on them; if the lettering was large, it was easy enough to read from the platform, and I’d found my surname more than once. But that was a game for daylight. Alongside the outer edge of the graveyard, a sports field with six towering fluorescent floodlights. The field seemed to float above the graves. The grass was still bright green. The shirts of the players glowed red and gold. It was hard not to mistake their far-off, anxious, screaming voices for the voices of young zombies emerged from the graveyard to play soccer.

But get this: she had followed me all the way down to the dark end of the platform. She stood not more than eight feet from me. I should mention that she was pretty and young. I attempted to feel an affinity for her, an affiliation, but it was not possible. Too fresh in my memory was the image of her slimy fork and menstrual face. It seemed we ought to acknowledge each other, two young women amid all this desolation, but instead I looked away. In the distance, a suspension bridge stretched over gleaming black water. Not that I could see the water, since many ugly things blocked it, yet I could imagine it, dark and oily in the night, multicolored with the frenetic task of reflecting the city. Atop the enormous steel structure from which the suspension bridge hung: two blinking red lights. Usually it’s a lovely thing to see blinking lights from afar, yet these lights I did not enjoy; they did not blink at a pleasant pace. They should have gone blink — blink — blink, but instead they went blinkblinkblink. I turned my attention back to her. She stood there, motionless, perhaps staring at the blinking red lights. I leaned out over the track to check for the headlights of an approaching train. There they were, still several stations away. Perhaps she too leaned out over the track and spotted the remote train; whatever the cause, something changed, something compelled her, because suddenly she was stepping toward me. There was nothing to do but meet her eyes. As I mentioned, she was young and pretty, with a friendly face, and it was not as much of a strain to smile at her as I’d imagined. I awaited her innocuous question: Excuse me, do you have the time? Excuse me, how many stops to Sheepshead Bay? Excuse me, does this line connect to the B? Excuse me, is this the inbound or outbound? Excuse me, but where did you get those jeans?

Watching her step closer, I wondered if we could have been friends.

Or maybe it would be something slightly less innocuous than a question — a statement. God, it’s cold. I saw you on the bus. Ah to be a teenager in love. Thank God the train’s coming. It’s creepy here by the graveyard.

She stopped near enough that I could see the crusty whiteness at the corners of her mouth. I turned my gaze to her feet and anticipated her voice; high and cheery, I guessed.

“I really” (high and cheery indeed) “grossed you out on the bus, didn’t I?”

I looked up at her, disbelieving, my heart going swift and hard. How dare she notice, how dare she accuse me.

“It’s one of my grandmother’s specialties, in case you were wondering.”

Her eyes were bloodshot. I watched the poor capillaries doing the best they could. I prepared myself to inform her that she had not grossed me out at all. But then my heart started to mess around, as it had tended to do in recent months, shivering and jabbing inside me.

“Anyway,” she continued, sparing me, “this is kind of awkward, but do you have a tampon I can borrow? I’m desperate.”

First: I was right! Second: Where would she go to insert this tampon? Third: A tampon cannot be borrowed . Fourth: I had an unopened box in my bag. Fifth: I remembered him in the fluorescent drugstore asking me what was the point of buying tampons, given the situation.

“Sure.” I attempted joviality. “As long as you promise not to return it.”

She grinned. I laughed nervously.

“I knew you’d be the right person to ask.” She said this in a scary, meaningful way, and my fingers were quivering as I unzipped my bag and pulled out the brand-new box of tampons and tried to break through the packaging. Meanwhile the train was approaching, she was staring at me, the plastic continued to defy me, I yanked out a pen, she stared at me like she knew something, I jabbed the pen at the plastic, the plastic gave way, I grabbed and peeled.

It was a merciful moment, the moment when I finally placed a tampon in her palm. The sacred white tube. I added a second, a third.

My period had not been coming. It did not come, and it did not come, and it did not come, it did not come, it did not come. This was not due to pregnancy; if only. There were other, sadder factors at play.

“Thank you,” she said, and then, “thank you, thank you,” as I added each additional tampon. It crossed my mind that perhaps she was just a normal girl. “I’m so desperate,” she said. “You really saved the day.” But then I became certain that she wanted to hurt me, because she kept going on about her gratitude, through her gratitude implying the richness of her flow, and surely my envy must have been there on my face, yet still she went on. The train was getting near, and I wanted — needed — it to arrive, to bear me away from this moment.