Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

“I see you more as a guest on Intervention ,” I said.

“That’s not even okay to say,” Teddy said.

I put my arm around him and told him I was joking. “You’re doing a great job,” I said.

“I’m saying, we shit the bed, you know?”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I said.

“You’re scared of a guy on a bicycle wearing tights,” he said. “In tights.”

“It could be worse.”

• • •

A week of rain came and I only got out of bed to give Teddy his pills and take him to his physical therapy appointments near the hospital. It was a tropical depression, nothing major. Together, Teddy and I would try to do the exercises they said he would respond to. He wasn’t seeing results, though, and I saw him giving up hope. I was, too. Since the accident Jeffrey had tried to steer clear of me, no matter what attempts I made. I wasn’t going for walks anymore, just sitting on the patio chair watching the water and the sun rise when the rain would pause from the safety of the yard.

“Is there any food?” Teddy yelled from the sofa. I opened the fridge and it was filled wall to wall with food. I asked him what he wanted and he only grumbled, saying he wasn’t sure.

“Work with me,” I said. “What are you in the mood for?”

“I don’t know, really. Surprise me,” he said. I wanted to drop him off in front of a Wendy’s.

I had been taking care of him and I had come to loathe any talk of food. What ’ s for dinner? was the worst. There wasn’t a single day when I cared about what was for dinner, but for Teddy and Jeffrey it seemed like that was all they could think about. With Teddy here, suddenly there had to be a routine. He was always hungry. I couldn’t toss a bowl of cereal toward Teddy, either, it had to be a meal. Jeffrey needed at least one vegetable. Teddy asked me if I wanted some more cookbooks to vary things up. Things were becoming unbearable. Teddy and I ordered pizza and watched the men build the fence outside. They didn’t stop for the rain. Watching them work became an obsession of mine. It almost looked like they were trying to keep the water out, like it would never reach us here. I worried about the broken window at my mother’s house, of water pouring into the broken window and filling the house with mold.

I decided to cut up the club directory and only keep fortune-cookie-size slips of printed phone numbers in a drawer by my bedside. I blocked my number and started my calls. A woman picked up and sounded impatient. I hung up quickly, apologizing for calling the wrong number. The second was a young boy. I hesitated and then just hung up on him without a word.

On the third call, a man picked up and I didn’t recognize his voice. It could have been anyone. I made my voice sound youthful and said “Hello” like it wasn’t even a question.

He sounded impatient on the phone and for a moment I considered hanging up.

“How are you feeling?” I tried to sound familiar, to make him unsure.

“Fine. Who is this?”

“Whoever you want me to be,” I said, and waited for the silence.

“Look, I’m kind of in a rush,” he said. Then, “Can you call back?”

I stared down at the slip with the number and said, “I’m not sure.”

“Please.”

I thought about it. “Who do you want me to be?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet.”

I hung up the phone and crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage. I stuck my hand in the drawer and pulled out another fortune and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello.”

The voice sounded middle-aged. It didn’t have the crackle of age or the squeak of youth. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was just fine. He sounded like he was waiting for me to start selling him something. His polite silence worried me. The aggressive ones were usually more interested in talking to me. Something about his voice seemed familiar, but I decided to ignore that. I decided to head him off.

“I’m not trying to sell you anything,” I said. And then, after a silence, I asked him what was wrong.

“Well, right now, I’m not sure who I’m talking to and you won’t tell me who you are or why you’re calling,” he said.

“You didn’t ask who this was,” I said.

I had to be careful here because he could think I was teasing him and some men didn’t like to be teased.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Whoever you want me to be.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He cleared his throat and then it sounded like he was moving to sit down, get comfortable. “There are so many options,” he said.

“Try me,” I said.

He let out a sigh and said, “I just don’t know.”

I heard Teddy making his way to the bathroom and thought about hanging up. This man wasn’t progressing fast enough. He was probably Kirk from down the street, a bad golfer and a mediocre husband.

“Why don’t you just say a name?”

I knew Teddy wouldn’t come in or even knock on my door when it was closed. I don’t think he liked coming into the bedroom where his father and I slept, even when we weren’t at home.

“How about Marilyn?” I played my Marilyn for him and he seemed to like it.

“Sing me happy birthday.” He laughed.

“Is it your birthday?”

“Well, no,” he said, so I told him I couldn’t.

“You’re not very nice to me,” he said.

“I could be,” I said.

“What do I have to do to get that?” he said, getting into things now.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

I looked out the window. The men were hard at work on the fence outside; they were only two houses away.

“Do you like yourself?” I asked, really curious.

It took him off guard. I think he was waiting for me to ask him something more pleasant, sexual.

“I like myself all right.”

“Good,” I whispered. “I thought you might be bad.”

He gave a high-octave laugh and then said, “Is this a test? A trick to get me to say something bad so you can tell my wife?”

“I don’t even know who your wife is,” I said. I wasn’t lying.

“What are you wearing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, looking down at my plaid nightgown.

He said, “Wow,” and nearly choked on the word. “So you think you’re naughty?” he asked.

I nearly giggled. I was getting into it again. Then I heard “Daddy!” yelled in the background.

“I have to go,” he said. And then he was gone.

I closed the drawer full of scraps and threw away this man’s phone number. I had forgotten how to be sexual and I cringed thinking that these people might be embarrassed for me. What was I even doing?

I went into Jeffrey’s office and stared at his computer. My skin began to tingle as I walked over, sat down, and turned it on. I opened his web browser and looked at the history. It was blank. He’d erased it, which made me realize that he knew I was checking. I knew there would be something somewhere he was directing all his attention to. And then, after clicking around, I found it in his download folder: Luz_hotfucking.mov.

I trembled as I opened the folder. A video popped up and it was pixelated and grainy. A young woman waited on a dirty mattress and spread her legs wide. She stared at the man holding the camera and tried to smile. She was young, brown-haired and light-skinned. She looked oddly familiar. It was impossible that I’d seen her before, wasn’t it? The cameraman bent her over and started to have sex with her. She turned around and looked like she was crying. Then I knew why she looked familiar. She looked like the young girl crying for her father, the man on the ground with his fishing poles. I fumbled at the keyboard, trying to shut the video off. I didn’t know how, so I just slammed the screen down shut. The sound was muffled but still on and I could hear her moans and screams.