Daphne_A Novel Page 8

  Seventeen long years

  And I spent all my money

  On whiskey and beer

  He closed his eyes, as did several others, lost in this little fantasy about how tragic it was to booze and wallow. “Oh, please,” I groaned, but Ollie pressed a finger to my lips.

  I watched the singer’s face. It contorted with the shapes of the lyrics, the ascent of the melody. He smiled, as if at some far off memory, shook his head as if it were fading. He winced, took on a cockeyed expression, arched his eyebrows, like he was riding out some exquisite pain. It seemed so practiced, like he’d worked on all of these looks in the mirror and wore them now for effect.

  “Ollie, please. This concrete. My ass is falling asleep.”

  Why this fucking pipe? I thought. But as the guy played another subdued ballad, it became apparent. In the close, echoing confines, the notes seemed to sound directly in my ears, as if the singer were right next to me, strumming and murmuring. He paused, considered, picked out the intro of a new song. “This one here’s about an old friend,” he intoned, “now departed for parts unknown.”

  The song was in a minor key and kept dissolving into the next set of chords, all low-level dread and, the way the guy sang it, resignation. He summoned a familiar landscape: country roads winding past waving fields and grain silos and tumbledown barns, a clear lake with little waves tipping toward shore, white geese settling onto its surface. He sang about a boy, a wild and bored and lost boy, driving through those endless fields. And I couldn’t help thinking of that brief year after I got my license, when I knew something was wrong but before my diagnosis, before I knew just how dangerous it was. I’d take out my mom’s Sentra and roam the Indiana countryside, sometimes with Brook, mostly alone, my dreams of travel slowly but steadily unraveling across all that flat vacancy. The future stretched vast and featureless, and I felt like some high-flying, mysterious creature slipping off into the towering midwestern sky. The chorus arrived—“If you’re going over,” the guy sang, “then let me, oh, let me go with you”—and I understood that the boy he sang about was gone, gone gone, yet lingered somewhere, felt but always just out of reach. I thought then of my father, the shimmering shape of his memory, and something rose in me, flooding me, drowning me with—

  I went for my phone, opened up the camera, set it to video, Bill’s strategy for his son’s birthday. Through the screen, I watched the guy play and sing. It pushed him back, pushed him away. I thought of concerts I’d seen on TV, half the audience holding up their phones, looking on from the outside, living their lives in third-person.

  “Hey,” Ollie whispered. I turned the camera on him, watched his face. Through the screen, he reached out, pulled my hand gently down, “Come on,” shifted so I could rest more fully against him, “get comfortable.”

  I closed my eyes, as if that would insulate me. It only brought it all closer, every tremble in the singer’s voice, every tiny squeak of his fingers slipping along the neck of the guitar, my father’s rust-red beard, delicately hairy chest, tentative smile, and sad, always averted eyes. The buzzing spread down my face, through my shoulders and arms, down my legs. Under me, I felt Ollie’s chest rise and fall. “It’s fine,” he whispered. “I won’t move an inch.”

  Sorrow passed through me, waves of frustration and guilt and anxiety. In the tremor of the singer’s voice, I heard my mother’s sobbing. All of that ancient dread moved through me. I couldn’t stop myself. I could only let it all wash away.

  THE WIND PICKED UP as we walked back to the train, ushering us back across the bay. I let myself rest against Ollie again. “Listen,” I said sleepily, wiped out, “I’m not helpless. I’m not some helpless little girl.”

  The tips of his fingers played with my hair. “You shouldn’t have to miss out.”

  “But, Jesus, when you take me weird places like that, warn me first.”

  He laughed. “Cheap date, I know. Sorry.”

  The howling of the train at full speed drowned out any more talking. As it slowed into Embarcadero, our mood had grown solemn, charged with possibility. “So,” Ollie said, trying to sound casual, “what now?”

  “I’m too tired for anything but home.” A long pause hung between us. “I wouldn’t mind you walking me, though.”

  In front of the Grove, we kissed a little. In my exhaustion, I could contain it, just. But I couldn’t bear to say good night. “You could come up. I can’t promise much, but . . .”

  “No, no, that’s fine,” he stammered. “I’d love to.”

  We got up to the apartment. He wanted to kiss me in the doorway. I shied away. “We should probably get horizontal if we’re doing this.” We climbed up to the loft, my nest within a nest. He started to take off his shirt. I put a hand out to slow him, then pulled him down to me instead. He kissed my neck, my collarbone, my hips, my—“Hold on,” I mumbled. “Bring down the temperature a little.”

  “Should I do something different? What should I do?”

  “Sorry, it’s hard to explain . . .” I’d hoped to put off this conversation as long as possible. We could’ve stuck with junior-high heavy petting forever, as long as it kept me from putting this on the table. “There’s this guy,” I began, “in my support group . . .”

  “Have you mentioned this before, your support group?”

  “Not exactly the best opening line on a date.”

  “But I wish you could trust me with—”

  “Listen, I found this group online four years ago, and my friend Brook made me email. But this guy, Sherman, he wanted to speak on the phone. And I was blown away. The symptoms, the triggers, I’d never talked to anyone like me before. But then Sherman starts asking, What’s it like when you hold someone’s hand? When you hug them? Goof around, make little jokes? And I realized, even then, he was way sicker than me. He used to be married, but he couldn’t kiss his wife or even look at pictures of their wedding without an attack. Sometimes, he had them one after another, on the couch for hours. He used to joke that he was allergic to love. At least he could laugh about it, sort of.”

  “Jesus, how is he now?”

  “What I’m trying to say, there are things he really can’t do. A lot of things.”

  “But he’s more”—Ollie searched for the right word—“sensitive, right?”

  “Well, almost all of us are a little sensitive. To, you know, that.”

  “Oh.”

  A whole history rushed into that syllable. Through high school, I ignored and deflected the advances of boys, too frightened of my body’s weird betrayals to want anyone else investigating them. In college, when I finally knew what was wrong, I drank. The nights blurred and rushed around me, my suitemates laughing and shouting as we made our sloppy way to parties, Beta, Sigma Nu, guys with their expectant glances, me trying not to feel more than a gathering velocity, making out on some guy’s unmade bed, not even hoping to stay in control. But I could never numb myself enough. The excitement and shame and disgust were too potent. My head would start lolling, and the guy would think I was too wasted to go through with it. Or he wouldn’t want me puking in his room. Or he’d just get bored and go off to join his brothers.

  One night at Beta, I switched all the way off—the fucker’s name was Jay—and lay there, feeling his hands all over my body, his cologne seizing up my nostrils and throat. Then he started tugging off my jeans. I went wild with fear, which froze me even deeper. I tried to kick, tried to flail and hit him, but I was trapped inside myself, knowing it was happening and powerless to stop it. I heard his belt slither from its loops, his zipper coming undone. But some couple stumbled into the room, and Jay swore savagely and disappeared. As did the couple. I lay alone in the dark wanting to flee, to cry, to scream, but unable to do anything, frozen inside my terror and fury. Since, I’d had a handful of boyfriends, a couple in grad school, a couple in San Francisco. All nice guys in their own well-meaning ways. But one thing united them all.

  “It’s okay to be disappointed,” I told Ollie.
“This is when they all go running.”

  He rolled onto his back and blinked up at the ceiling. “I’m not disappointed. I’m just trying to figure this all out. I mean, it’s not as bad as it is with your friend, right?”

  “It depends on the, I don’t know, intensity of the experience.”

  “Like, anything up to third base?”

  “That’s usually a pretty close call.”

  “But what about—?”

  “When I orgasm, if I can even get that far, I just ragdoll completely. One guy thought he killed me. That was an interesting little freak-out.”

  Ollie furrowed his brow. “What about doing it yourself?”

  I had my Rabbit. It had a few modifications, straps to keep it in place. Paraplegics use them—amazing what you can learn on the internet. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d pulled that contraption out of the drawer. It just went and went after I switched off, and made me very sore the next day. “Not a frequent occurrence,” I said.

  “There must be ways other than straight-up sex?”

  “To be honest, it’s not something I love exploring.”

  Ollie let out a sigh. “Sorry, I’m not . . . Okay, I am disappointed, frustrated, whatever. With the condition, not with you.”

  “I’ll give you a blowjob. I can be fairly dispassionate with those. Actually, I think most girls can.”

  “Daphne, please, I’m trying to be serious. You having an attack, it could even be kind of hot.”

  “You’d get some pretty immediate feedback, anyway.”

  “I might just be into it. No reason not to find out.”

  “I enjoyed tonight. I want you to know that. At the least.”

  He turned and wrapped his arm around me. “People make things work,” he murmured. “Happens all the time.” A few minutes later, he was snoring softly. I lay there, exhausted, staring up at the ceiling, unmoving, everything inside me writhing.

  TWELVE

  WHEN I WOKE HE WAS GONE. THERE WAS A NOTE ON the kitchen counter in his girlish script: Didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping hard. Got a call for a job down in Pacifica. Me and the Irish boys building some rich folk a deck. He’d written down his number. I thought I’d bring us up to the 20th century. Call me later?

  His smell lingered in the apartment. I had that odd nostalgia again, felt somehow dislodged from the present. All I could do was sit on the couch in the late-morning sun, buoyant, hollow, stretched thin, like I’d floated into too rarified an atmosphere. I had a new boyfriend. I touched the idea carefully, giving myself little hits of pleasure and trepidation, trying to enjoy a few moments of delicately balanced equilibrium.

  I WAS NESTLED in the corner with a midafternoon glass of Moscato. The Pit Stop had recently expanded its wine selection and, to my further dismay, taken out the pool table and replaced it with two plush, horseshoe-shaped booths. I sat in one, watching a young guy in a saloonkeeper’s vest wash and wipe glasses.

  When Brook finally came in, she had on big round sunglasses, threw her handbag into the booth, and, without comment on the improvement/defacement of our bar, signaled the guy in the vest, who was already mixing her Manhattan. “Sorry, lady, sorry.” Her voice was raspy, and when she let out a big yawn, I got a blast of Listerine and bourbon. “Got caught up again.”

  “Jesus, B, have you even slept?”

  “In the car back up from San Jose. So, that’s, what, an hour and a half?”

  “You’re just coming from a party now?”

  “Yeah, they never want it to stop, and they’re all like fifteen or whatever.”

  “Don’t you have a contract or a terms of service or something?”

  She pushed her sunglasses up on her head. “Christ, what kind of light bulbs are they using in here?” Her pupils were the size of manhole covers. “Some of these pills, they last so long you actually get bored.”

  “Just because they’re high off their asses doesn’t mean you have to be, too.”

  “If you promise them the greatest night of their lives, you can’t just stand around like a hall monitor. Anyway, who do you think gets them the pills?”

  “Great, and now you’re a drug dealer.”

  “I took Halloween with me, showed him what he’ll be paying for. You have to go full service. But enough about goddamn business. Let’s talk about your new fella.”

  I’d texted Brook a couple of days ago, to bring her up to speed on Ollie, help me sort through everything. I’d come ready to continue that conversation, but now I felt the old reluctance again. I could never talk to her when she was in host mode or fucked up.

  “B, I’m really upset right now.”

  “Nothing sagging that I can see.”

  It was true. I’d expected her to blow in like this. “Please tell me you’re not dating a goddamn client.”

  “He isn’t bad company. And, besides, this one’s my exit strategy.”

  “Wait, how much can you make off one party?”

  “Just enough to keep the doors open. That’s the point.” She explained that she’d been looking for an opportunity like this for a while, a start-up that was going to get big enough to need a full-time events person. Halloween seemed receptive, or anyway she was going to make him receptive. “Is it wrong to want a 401(k), dental coverage, a seat on one of those Google buses?” She signaled the bartender again. “Shit, what’s his name? I need someone for Friday.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to worry about you.”

  “I used to tell the Miller Lite girls, ‘Spend your erotic capital while you have it.’ ”

  “You don’t believe that horseshit. And an exit strategy is actually using your Berkeley degree for something real.”

  Brook looked at me blankly. “Remind me what your fella does, works with his hands, just so he can say he does at parties, make all the other guys feel like pussies?”

  “Come on . . .” Now, finally, I was starting to wilt. “That’s not what he . . .”

  “And what do you two do together? Cook fancy meals and go to the movies?”

  “You know I can’t go to . . .”

  “Right, sorry, shit, didn’t mean to”—Brook winced—“I cannot get a migraine tonight. Do you have anything? Tylenol, Aleve, a shotgun?”

  “B, p-lease . . .” I was curling over in the direction of my wine. She reached across the table, gently pushed me back—almost second nature for her.

  “Don’t worry, take your time, take your time.” She checked her phone. “But, fuck, I should get out of here by five.” Her cocktail arrived, and she got wrapped up chatting with the bartender about hiring him for some after-party. He looked at me skeptically. “Don’t worry about her,” Brook said. “We were out all night.”

  SHERMAN SAT SLUMPED in his desk, pencil between his fingers, methodically crosshatching the paper on which he jotted notes for the meeting. The rest of us milled around the snack table. Sherman usually liked to start right on time. Finally, everyone just drifted toward their seats. “Why don’t we open things up today?” Sherman said without looking up from his slowly blackening page. “Daphne, let’s start with you.”

  I glanced around at the rest of them, feeling ambushed. “Okay, we could talk about . . . visualization techniques.” Good. Something bland and almost personal. “I use this image—or the memory of it, I guess—of this river near where I grew up. I don’t know, maybe it’s the comfort of the familiar or—”

  Miranda cut me off. “We talked about visualizations the other week. You weren’t here.” I suggested running down some of the topics trending on the forums. Miranda sighed. “We can just go online if we want any of that.”

  Everyone was looking at me expectantly. They wanted me to really talk about myself. “Okay, fine,” I said. “I met someone.”

  Sherman looked up, gave me a thin smile. “That’s great, Daphne.”

  “How long?” Miranda said, a little too urgently.

  “A month maybe.” Almost exactly that. “We met in a bar. He has hi
s own business. He works in . . . electronics restoration.” Christ, what was that? Was I embarrassed by what Ollie did to scrape together a living?

  “The kids in this city,” Bill said, fidgeting today in a mint green polo, “they build an app, sell it for five hundred mil, can’t even fix a leaky faucet.”

  “What matters is”—Sherman bobbed momentarily, something roiling around in that shaggy head of his—“that he’s supportive.”

  “Sure,” I said, “he’s thoughtful about it, sure.”

  “So he knows about the condition?”

  “Yeah, I told him.”

  “How did that go?” Miranda said.

  “It’s a lot to ask of a stranger.” Bill butting in again. “I’ve known Carianne since high school. She practically saw me grow up with it.”

  “Does he have a temper?” Miranda said. “I went out with this guy once, handsome but what a temper.”

  “Trust,” Bill said. “Everything Carianne and I have is built on trust.”

  Across the circle, Teshawn cleared his throat. “Yeah, yeah, trust is nice and all.” A grin poked out through the muffling of the drugs. “What I want to know is, have you done it?”

  Giggles flitted around the room. Half of their heads slowly bobbed back up. I wet my lips, tried to swallow, looked to Sherman to break in and save me. “We’re working on that,” I said. “We’re going slow. Ollie doesn’t mind.”

  “Oh, man,” Teshawn said, “dude is crazy, then.”

  More giggles. I let myself have an uncertain laugh.

  “What I’d be doing,” Teshawn said, “I’d be telling my girl, ‘You’ve never seen this kind of crazy shit. But get ready, we’re going to get there, all the way there.’ ” It was strange, the somnambulant way he said all of this. You could only just hear his lust and humor squeaking their way out. “What I’d do, I’d start out on top, nice and slow. ’Cause if I go wild, I might flop all over her. And that’s ending a night real quick.”