Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

I walked to the edge of the water, to my old miniature boat launch, and stared out at the water, trying to remember how it was to be around two people who felt that way about each other. There was a piece of plastic peeking out of the reeds and I leaned down to grab it. It was a small, mud-crusted boat with a hole in its side. I washed it in the cloudy water and tried to save it from itself. I tried to make it float, but it teetered to one side and capsized. Cheap plastic shit. When I was a kid, my boats were made of wood and looked like small-size replicas of the real things. I had my dad paint Joanne on all of my boats just so mine could match his. I’d send the fleet out onto the water and watch my mother smile at the sight of her name on all of them. We’d shout “Pirate fleet Joanne come to ransack the islands!” and my mother would hover and yell at the crabs not to jump off, to keep sailing because they had islands to pillage. I’d yell with her. I’d yell to the captain of the fiddler crabs to stay strong, to not lose hope on his journey. It all felt so important then, because my mother made everything feel important. My father would watch us but never join in. It was our game, not his. I missed her. Things felt doomed without her. When she died, I ran to the water and threw all my ships in. I wanted them to go with her, to keep her safe. I pushed them away but the waves kept bringing them back to shore. I finally crushed them under my feet when I knew the tide wouldn’t take them away from me. I hid the broken wood in the spaces between the rocks of the breakwater by our house and watched it float in the dark, trapped water.

How could I ever pretend to be brave?

I squeezed my eyes shut because I couldn’t think about it anymore. Because I’d have to follow the timeline to right here and now.

I sat down and let the sun burn my skin.

CHERYL

IN THE MORNING I looked around my room and thought about where I could possibly go. An apartment somewhere? I stared out the window at the water, the big expanse of sky. I wanted to remember all of it.

I opened my drawer and stared at the pile of numbers. I knew a women’s mixed doubles tournament was already underway and no husbands ever went to watch, so they were alone at home or shuffling their children in front of cartoons or into sprinklers so they could have some alone time at the computer or in front of the television. I picked out a number and dialed. After the fourth ring I nearly hung up, ready to pick out another, but then I heard a click and swallowed, readying myself.

“Hello?”

When he said it, it sounded like yellow, and I got ready. I stopped myself for a moment. Was it Tuck? I had never heard him say hello like that before. It might have been okay.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Who’s this?”

I wouldn’t tell him and he said, “It’s too early for telemarketers, isn’t it?” And I could feel him wanting to hang up.

“You sound a little lonely,” I said.

He was silent for a while and then he started to whisper, “How would you know?”

I tried to guess whose voice it was, but nothing came to me.

“I just have a feeling, is all.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” he said.

“But I want to,” I said, and I meant it. I wanted to make us feel good.

That’s all he needed. I could almost hear him unzip through the phone later, when I told him how I was pressing my hand down hard in between my thighs and pretending it was his. I lay motionless as I heard him exhale abruptly, finished.

He asked me if he could see me and I said no and we hung up quickly. I crumpled up the number and flushed it down the toilet to make sure I could never call back.

I looked at my hair in the bathroom mirror and it was greasy and limp. I couldn’t remember when I had washed it last, so I turned on the shower and waited for it to warm up. Teddy wasn’t home, but that was fine.

The blinds were open in my bathroom and I could see into the Magrees’ bedroom, our houses were that close here. I wasn’t sure whose room it was, but there was a four-poster bed and paisley sheets and I figured neither of Leslie and Patrick’s sons would go for that. The bed looked like any other bed, not a married couple’s bed or a surface to have sex on. It was in full view of our bathroom. They could hear the toilets flushing or the shower running or someone struggling to evacuate their bowels if both our windows were open. That was a kind of intimacy I wasn’t interested in having with them. So I shut the window, although it was hot and stuffy in the bathroom. The window right behind the toilet was open all the time in the warm weather. What must they have thought of us, lying in bed at night, hearing the bathroom sounds? Why didn’t we hear their sex sounds when we were in the bathroom? Their bedroom looked barren. I couldn’t even tell if there was anything on the walls. Leaning in closer, I thought I could make out a Norman Rockwell print. Of course. An old sea captain or something. Not one inch of our homes lacked a beachy feel. I wanted to buy a pink flamingo to put where my flowers had been just to watch the uproar.

Everything had begun to fog and I finally stepped into the shower. My skin wasn’t taut anymore. My upper thighs were pocked with cellulite and it made me self-conscious to wear a bathing suit to the club pool, the dips in my skin showing through the fabric. But to wear one of those suits with a skirt was even more alarming. I would go and hope that no one would notice and I’d eye the other women and scrutinize their cellulite and stretch marks. Not out of malice, but to see where I fit in on the roster of female imperfections.

After the shower, I walked around my bedroom naked, even past the uncovered windows. If someone was outside, they could possibly see everything and for a moment that was thrilling. I felt myself strutting, picking up clothing, tucking it into drawers. Who was I showing off for? I imagined I could hear the crunch of gravel.

And then I saw that someone was staring at me from the yard. I ran and pulled a sheet around me.

The room was all windows and I had left the blinds up, on purpose. I walked to a window, sheet pulled tight, and saw that it was Steven, leaning against the fence like he owned it, watching me. He looked hungry, like he’d spend all day in the yard looking at our windows if he had to.

I opened the sheet.

He didn’t react — he just stood there staring. I just stood there exposing myself to him, hoping he would react in some visible way. I wanted to say, “You want it.”

He smiled and I stared down at him, finally feeling a sense of power again. He needed me as much as I needed him. We stared at each other and I wasn’t afraid anymore. I looked down at the shock of my white breasts against the rest of my tanned skin and when I looked back into the yard he was gone.

• • •

Later, I put on a dress, something pleasant and cotton that I found in the back of my closet. A-line. Red. Steven was seeking me out and I had to acknowledge that. What I didn’t like, though, was that Steven was probably the one killing my garden. Outside, I pulled the dead flowers, my peonies, what was left of everything, and I looked at the ocean. They had wrapped the fence along the seawall. The neighbors on the corner still threw their dog shit into the water. I saw them. The neighbors who barreled their fists into the air, the ones who told Lori that the fishermen were shitting in the water.

I stopped gardening and picked up all the dead plants, conscious of the dirt I was getting on me, and left the yard with them. Older men from the club that I hardly knew were driving golf carts up and down the streets. They looked papery, liver-spotted and veiny. I kept walking and passed the houses on Ocean Beach Avenue with all their bumblebees buzzing and white fences gleaming, past giant black-eyed Susans, azaleas, dahlias, and rose gardens in every shade all bright and blooming. What had I done to deserve a dead garden? Pebbles were finding their way into my sandals and jabbing at the soles of my feet. I pressed on.