Lauren Holmes: Barbara the Slut and Other People

Beth and I watched the rats in silence until the subway came. On the subway Beth said, “So, what about your bad dates?”

“Oh,” I said. “You know. New York is weird.”

“You should go back and ask that girl out.”

“What girl?” I said.

In a deep voice Beth said, “What kind of chair is this? It’s really comfortable but I bet it’s not as comfortable as your vagina.”

The old man across the aisle looked up at us.

I started to laugh. Beth started too. We cracked up for a minute. Then we stopped. We didn’t really have anything else to say.

• • •

When we got home, Kelly was making lanterns out of jam jars and wire and hanging them on the fire escape with candles in them.

“That’s so beautiful,” said Beth.

“Thanks,” said Kelly. “I hope they’re sturdy.”

“How do you know if they’re sturdy or not?” said Beth.

“I don’t,” said Kelly.

“Well they’re beautiful,” said Beth. “I’m very impressed.”

“Thanks.” Kelly smiled.

I let Beth ask Kelly a million questions about lanterns and beaded chandeliers and stripping furniture. Since Kelly was Kelly, it was a win-win situation. I put the french fries in and constructed the grilled cheese. I wondered what to do about Beth’s dumplings.

“Do you want me to warm up your dumplings?”

“Yeah baby, warm up my dumplings,” she said. “No, I like to eat them cold.”

When everything was ready she got them out of the fridge and started eating them out of the package. Then she went to the cabinet and took a glass down and held it up to the light and put it in the sink. She took another and did the same thing.

“Beth,” I said.

“What?”

“Are you putting our glasses in the sink because they’re not clean enough?”

“Yeah, should I not?”

“No, you should not. It’s rude.”

“Oh, is it?” said Beth, not sarcastically. “My mom does it to me.”

“That’s different. That’s your mom.”

“Okay. What should I do?”

“If you don’t see one that looks good then wash one.”

“Okay,” she said and washed a glass.

Kelly came in and we sat down to eat. Beth asked where the forks were and I got up to get her one.

“Is this clean enough for you?” I said.

Beth inspected it. “Yes.”

“Jason is mad at me because I put some dirty glasses in the sink,” she said to Kelly.

“Why is that bad?” said Kelly.

“Not from the counter,” I said, “from the cabinet.”

“Oh,” said Kelly. “Well that’s probably my fault. I think I did dishes last.”

It was definitely Kelly’s fault. She did dishes like she was blind and also had no fingers. There was always dried orange juice pulp on the glasses.

After dinner Kelly got dressed and went out. Beth and I watched a basketball game. I worked on a proposal letter. When the game ended I opened the futon for Beth and gave her a pillow and a blanket. I brought Pammy into my room, closed the door, got into bed, and jerked off.

The next morning I woke up early by accident. I took Pammy out for a run. On our way out he licked Beth’s feet, which were hanging off the futon. Beth’s feet were like everything else about her. Oversized but fine. She didn’t have anything gross like bunions and her toes were the right length and right width. I started to pay attention to this in high school because the only thing I could say to Kelly that really upset her was that her feet were ugly. They were and she knew it. And then in college I turned into kind of a foot guy. Tiffany’s feet were sexy. They were tiny and she had perfectly shaped toenails, like little shells. She had them done all the time and sometimes I did them for her. She told somebody about that, probably one of the guys she was fucking. My friends asked me if I wiped her ass for her, too.

I have all my epiphanies when I’m running. I had three contradictory epiphanies on the run with Pammy. I needed one more epiphany to tell me what the real epiphany was. The three options were: 1. The reason I didn’t want to sleep with Beth wasn’t because she kind of grossed me out, or because I didn’t really want to sleep with anyone after Tiffany the life-wrecking whore, but because she was like a sister to me, which explained all the fighting. 2. I actually did want to sleep with her, which also explained all the fighting. Or 3. We didn’t actually have anything in common, and I neither wanted to sleep with nor be friends with her.

I wanted it to be number 1 so that we could still be friends, and I didn’t want it to be number 3. As for number 2, I really didn’t think I wanted to sleep with her. Although I would have liked for her to know that I was better in bed now. And it would have made sense if the inverse of us hating each other all day was fucking each other all night. And I really did want to have sex. But I just didn’t want to do it with Beth.

I gave up trying to figure it out. Instead I thought about how I had too many women in my life. Too many women and all the wrong kind.

On the way back from the run, Pammy and I went to the bodega to get buttermilk and eggs to make pancakes. Beth was still asleep on the couch. I let Pammy into Kelly’s room and I measured ingredients in the kitchen. When the girls still weren’t up I opened my proposal letter but then played Minesweeper instead.

I heard Beth get up and go into the bathroom. Then she came into my room and said, “What’s cooking, good-looking?”

“I was going to make pancakes,” I said. “Are you hungry?”

“Sure,” she said. “Is Kelly up?”

“No, but she sleeps forever,” I said.

We went into the kitchen. I mixed everything up and heated the griddle.

Beth washed berries. We put them in the pancakes. When Beth was looking through a drawer for a spatula she found a bone-shaped cookie cutter. She put it on the griddle and made a pancake for Pammy.

Kelly got up when the pancakes were ready. She is psychic about food. “Aw,” she said when she saw the bone pancake. “That is so cute. I love that you love my little Muscle-wuscle.”

“I don’t know if I love him,” said Beth. “I just thought it would be funny.”

Kelly looked hurt. I laughed.

They sat down to eat. I made more pancakes. After breakfast Kelly left and Beth helped me do the dishes.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said.

“Me too,” I said.

“Are you still mad about the glasses?”

“No. It was just a weird day.”

“I know,” she said.

“It’s not my fault the glasses were dirty. Kelly can’t do dishes to save her life.”

I hadn’t planned on throwing my sister under the bus. I wanted to take it back.

“Okay,” said Beth.

I was ready for the weekend to be over. But I had already asked Beth to take me to the store to get paper towels and toilet paper, so she did. When we got back she parked four feet from the curb. She got out to open her trunk for me.

“Thanks for taking me to get these things,” I said.

“Of course.”

“Have a safe trip home.”

“I will. Let’s do this again soon?” She gave me a hug.

“Sure,” I said. I didn’t think it would be soon.

“All right,” she said. “Back to my crappy fucking life.”

She got into her car and lit a cigarette and peeled into the street. The car turned out of sight at the end of the block.

I went inside. I tried to work on my computer in bed. But it was hard to keep my eyes open. Pammy came in and got under the covers. We slept for a long time.

When Mike Anonymous first called the clinic they made me pick up the phone. I didn’t know what the hell he was saying so I put him on hold. They always made me pick up when someone with an Asian accent called, like I could speak a word of any Asian language, which I couldn’t. This guy was actually Japanese, I could tell that much. I was a quarter Japanese, but my Japanese grandma died when I was five, and I had never been able to understand her either.