Wake Up, Wanda Wiley Page 11

  “Very. You know how he feels about you.” Audrey hesitated as if wondering whether she had said too much. “I mean, you know now, don’t you?”

  “I know,” said Wanda.

  “And I’m sorry, but—” Audrey cut herself off, but Wanda knew what she was going to say. She knew how Audrey felt about Dirk.

  “I don’t want to get into your business,” Audrey said. “You’re a grown woman.”

  Coming from Audrey, whom she admired (except for the tattoos), that stung almost as much as one of Dirk’s backhanded compliments.

  “You want to come in and wait?”

  “No,” Wanda said. But she did want to come in and wait, and maybe fall asleep in the living room and not have to wake up in her own house the next morning, in her own life with the selfish narcissistic manipulating oaf who brightened and ruined all her days.

  “I’ll tell him you stopped by.” Audrey shut the door.

  Wanda walked aimlessly for the next few hours, not wanting to go home and not knowing where else to go. At 1:30, she passed a pack of leering fraternity boys on their way out of a bar. One of them turned to check her out from behind as she passed. “Well look who’s ready for bed!” He stretched out his words in a mocking, suggestive tone. She remembered that she was wearing the pale green pajamas that Dirk loved to peel off of her. The frat boys’ energy was the same as Dirk’s, lewd and self-satisfied, but less polished, less aware of how to find and push her buttons.

  The boys were merely crude and ineffective where he was instinctively accurate. He could make her come to him, even against her will at times. These kids couldn’t have gotten to her through any means other than brute force, and there were four of them, she thought, and they were drunk. She crossed her arms and stepped up her pace. She didn’t think about where she was going, only that she had been so stoned and so upset these past few hours that she hadn’t recognized the degree to which she’d put herself at risk.

  At 1:53, she was back at Austin’s. The house was dark, so she rang the bell.

  Audrey in her tank top, shaking her head. “He hasn’t come home.”

  Wanda turned and left. Why didn’t she ask me to stay this time, she wondered. Can’t she see I’m upset? Can’t she see I’m suffering?

  But you already told her no, Wanda reminded herself. She asked earlier if you wanted to come in and wait, and you said no. That’s pretty damn clear, isn’t it? No means no, right?

  Funny, she thought as she criticized herself, how one part of me, one voice can be so big, and yell and scream and make the rest of me feel so small.

  And I’m so tired. I am so, so, so, so tired.

  The pot had worn her down. The beer and wine and the heavy steak. The confusion at her own response to Austin’s kiss. The overly long day had worn her down. The years with Dirk, years of trying to maintain a sense of self-respect while fighting battles she could never win. For Dirk, there was no losing. Simply getting her to fight was winning, and he could draw her in every time.

  She climbed the steps wearily, took her shoes off on the porch, opened the door quietly. She waited at the foot of the stairs, not daring to turn on the light. When the sound of his gentle snoring drifted down, she walked silently to the sink and filled a glass of water. She drank it down, crossed the room, collapsed on the couch, and reflected on how, after so many nights like this and so many fights, exhaustion had become a state of being.

  And tomorrow they wouldn’t talk about it. Tomorrow they would greet each other as if nothing had happened. The tension would remain, and the fight would resume at some point in the day, with a new subject, but it would be the same fight, and he would push her down and down and down, almost to the breaking point, and then he’d lift her up to a point of near-normalcy that felt like ecstasy compared to the depths she’d been in. And that would feel like love.

  That would be tomorrow. Just like all of the tomorrows of all the yesterdays of the past six and a half years.

  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time…

  Unless there is no tomorrow, she thought.

  She closed her eyes.

  I was too young when he found me.

  Take him and cut him out in little stars…

  How had Juliet’s infatuation come to this?

  And he will make the face of heaven so fine…

  Please don’t let there be another tomorrow.

  …that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

  Why did he have to find me?

  She tried to pray, but she was so tired she didn’t know what to ask for anymore. Her own words failed her, but the words of the poet did not. She found herself muttering Romeo’s speech of resignation as she sank into the couch.

  Here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh.

  And when mercy found her it was sleep.

  29

  Trevor sat on the couch listening to the clock tick, the alarm clock that was now keeping time with Wanda’s world. 2:33. After hearing her final whisper, he was grateful for the silence, relieved to hear her quieted.

  “She’s beginning to dream,” Hannah said from the other end of the couch, where she was thoughtfully twisting a Rubik’s cube.

  “Where’d that come from?” Trevor asked.

  “All kinds of things show up in her subconscious. You’d be surprised.”

  “You’re very calm,” Trevor said. “For all that’s going on right now.”

  “I know.” She gave the cube a twist and showed him that two sides of the puzzle were now complete.

  “Everything that happens up there,” she said, pointing up to indicate the world of consciousness, “is set up down here first. The fact that I’m calm means she’s figured it out. She doesn’t know it yet. Not consciously. But she’s just a step away.”

  “What will she dream about?”

  “I don’t know.” Hannah turned her attention back to the puzzle. “I don’t always get to see her dreams, but I feel them.”

  30

  Wanda was at sea in the jaws of a great white shark.

  It could have bitten her in half, could have pulled her under with the cold, indifferent efficiency for which the species is reviled and feared. But this one was content to keep her in its grip, to thrash now and then so its teeth sunk in, to descend for sixty or ninety seconds at a time while she held her breath, returning her to the surface just as she felt her lungs would burst.

  In the dream world, there was no time. In the dream world, she had existed always and forever in those fearful jaws.

  Now a man was approaching in a small skiff. It was Austin in his bland khakis and faded polo shirt.

  Where does he even find such boring clothes, she wondered as the shark asserted its power with a violent shake. She punched its nose to anger it, and it shook again, harder this time.

  The skiff plodded on steadily through the waves. The shark didn’t seem to notice its approach.

  When he reached her a few seconds later, Austin said, “Climb in.” He said it simply, matter-of-factly, like he was picking her up from an errand.

  “Goddamnit, Austin, I can’t just climb in. He’s got his teeth in me.”

  “Grab the side,” Austin said. “Pull yourself up.” The ease of his tone infuriated her.

  “I can’t just pull myself up. I’m fucking dying, you asshole!”

  He patted the gunwale. “Grab on and pull.”

  She grasped the edge of the boat first with one hand and then the other, looking at him angrily all the while, intending to pull with all her strength and rip herself in half just to prove to him that what he was asking her to do was impossible.

  She gave a pull, and to her surprise, she slid free as if nothing held her. In three seconds she was in the skiff. Austin turned the motor, and the boat plowed towar
d shore.

  Wanda looked back at the shark. It was crushing in its jaws a life-size rubber sex doll. As it thrashed and pulled the doll under, Wanda saw the face. It wasn’t her. It was Shana, the girl Dirk had taken out the other night.

  The water clouded with blood, and then the fin came up and headed out to sea where thousands of latex women bobbed in the waves awaiting the slithering predator.

  Wanda checked herself for bite marks. Her body was riddled with them. Her torso and stomach, arms and legs and breasts and heart.

  “Those will fade,” Austin said.

  She was ashamed to be naked in front of him.

  “There’s nothing to hide,” he said. “I’ve already seen everything. I saw it all from the beginning. From the first time we talked. I drew a picture, remember? Of you.”

  The shore was just ahead.

  31

  “BEACH WEEK!”

  The scratchy amplified voice was so loud she practically leapt off the couch.

  “Jesus Christ, Dirk, don’t point that thing at me!” It was the bullhorn he used each year on the third day of class, when he led his freshman writing class on a tour of the campus. It saved him having to shout as he pointed out the buildings and landmarks they would have to describe in their essays.

  “And put some clothes on,” Wanda added as she sat up.

  “BUT WE DIDN’T FINISH LAST NIGHT!”

  She yanked the bullhorn from his hands and threw it on a chair.

  “Seriously,” Dirk said. “My balls ache like hell.”

  “You can go to hell.” Wanda stepped past him and went into the bathroom.

  “Cook some breakfast,” Dirk said outside the door. “I’ll pack the car.”

  She waited until she heard him go upstairs. Then she used the toilet and washed up.

  She listened at the door before she came out. If he was around, she’d hear him. He was always the loudest presence in the building. Any building.

  She heard him thumping and thrashing in the bathroom overhead. If a normal person were making that much noise, she’d assume he was grappling with an intruder. Dirk, she guessed (correctly), was just brushing his teeth.

  Famished from her long night of wandering, Wanda opened the fridge in search of breakfast.

  Two eggs would be perfect, and she could warm the bacon in the microwave. Pancakes were too much work. Toast would do. And she would need coffee to shake off her sluggishness.

  As she removed the eggs she told herself she might as well cook all six. And heat all the bacon, not just three strips. And make enough toast and coffee for him too. No sense in picking an unnecessary fight, which is what she’d be doing if she cooked only for herself. And, she told herself, he’s easier to manage when his stomach is full.

  She decided to make the pancakes too.

  At breakfast, she listened to his lips smack as he ate, and she was grateful for an hour of calm, an hour without argument.

  This is how it starts, she thought. This is us come full circle.

  Dirk wore a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt printed with gaudy palms and hula girls.

  He’s already in costume, she told herself.

  The giant white napkin he had tucked into his collar to keep the bacon grease off the hula girls reminded her of a baby’s bib. She had told him once when he was drunk that if he wore a diaper, he wouldn’t have to get up and go to the bathroom after each beer. At the time, he thought it was a great idea. He went to the grocery for more beer and a box of adult diapers, but when he tested them, he found they were only suitable for leaks and minor accidents, not the torrents he unleashed after consuming an entire twelve-pack. Wanda had to buy new couch cushions, which she’d been wanting to do anyway.

  This suddenly struck her as odd. No matter how offensive his actions, she thought, I always tell myself there’s something in it for me. If Peter Pennypacker peed on the couch, Louise would never let him hear the end of it. Dirk does it, and I tell myself I’m lucky because now I have an excuse to replace the cushions.

  It’s not just my emotional wiring that’s off. It’s my whole brain. Before she could proceed any further down this path of enlightenment—

  “GREAT BREAKFAST!” Dirk shouted through the bullhorn.

  “Put that goddamn thing away!”

  “YOU GOT IT, BABE!”

  He put it in the giant tote bag with the towels and sunscreen.

  “You’re not taking that to the beach, are you?”

  “Someone has to yell at the swimmers who go out too far.”

  “That’s the lifeguard’s job,” Wanda said.

  “And obviously they’re not doing it, or those people wouldn’t be out there.”

  “Leave the bullhorn, Dirk. Seriously.”

  “Do you really want it to be on your conscience when someone drowns?”

  She rolled her eyes and picked up the dishes, hers and his, before she stopped to notice what she was doing.

  A few minutes later, as Dirk thumped violently in the bathroom upstairs (nose hair trim, Wanda told herself), she found her phone and called Austin.

  “Hey.” She sounded sheepish. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “When are you guys leaving for the beach?”

  “I don’t know.” Wanda looked out the front window. “Looks like Dirk has the car packed, but I haven’t started on my bag. Plus, he’s grooming. He’ll be at the eyebrows next. I can’t see us leaving in less than an hour.”

  “I’ll come by.”

  “I’m surprised you still want to talk to me.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Well it’s nice of you. To come over and say goodbye.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said. “But we’re not saying goodbye.”

  32

  “Did you pack the sunscreen?” Dirk asked.

  She was in the bathroom packing her toothbrush and toothpaste. They didn’t share a tube because she didn’t squeeze from the bottom, and her tube always had a gummy crust around the opening that inspired Dirk to lecture her about how personal decline begins with minor acts of carelessness. It was she who suggested separate tubes, mainly to stop the lectures. After that, he found new things to sermonize about, to edify and improve her, for such was his love.

  Wanda’s shoulders tensed. “I thought you packed the sunscreen.”

  “Ha!” He grinned his big white smile and pointed his index finger at her. “Gotcha!”

  Of course you packed it, she thought. Because once I packed it and it spilled on the towels, and that was the end of me ever packing sunscreen again.

  He gave her a sudden, unwanted kiss, a quick peck on the lips. The way his face came at her, so quick and unexpected, made her jerk her head back, like a boxer trying to avoid an opponent’s jab.

  “Car’s all packed,” he said as he unzipped and peed into the toilet behind her.

  “Do you have to do that while I’m in here?”

  “Do you have to be in the bathroom while I pee?” His tone was light and flirty, which made his remark sound all the more rude.

  She dropped her toothpaste into her bag and thought of the joint on the nightstand. If he’s going to be like this for the whole two-hour drive…

  But no. Austin would be by in a few minutes, and she wanted to have a clear head when they said goodbye. No joint yet. Save it for the road.

  She tossed the bag of toiletries into her suitcase. She normally would pack a large suitcase for a week-long trip, but she knew that at the beach she’d wear the same clothes over and over. A few swimsuits, shorts, t-shirts, one dress, and a sweatshirt in case it got cold at night. She packed it all into one of those rolling bags that fits in an overhead bin.

  “You ready?” Dirk asked.

  She saw the big handprints on his pants. Pee and then wash and then ignore the hand towel that’s right in front of your stupid annoying face and wipe your hands on your goddamn pants. Why are you such an ass?


  Normally she would have said that aloud. But today she didn’t, and she had the strange sense Dirk was disappointed in her for not snapping at him.

  Why am I so irritable today, she wondered. It must be the emotional hangover from last night’s fight. But today I’m doing well. I’m self-aware. I’m in control. I’m not letting us fall into the same old pattern.

  Still, she couldn’t resist needling him. It just slipped out. “You sure the car’s packed just right?” Her voice had the taunting edge that she knew would set him off.

  Dirk looked uncertain. “Yeah. Why? Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “I know you usually repack it three times before we leave, and today you haven’t repacked at all.”

  Dirk looked suspicious. “What if it doesn’t need repacking?”

  “What if it does?”

  Dirk stared at her for a few seconds, waiting for her to crack. Then he blinked. “Fuck!”

  He thundered down the wooden stairs and in a minute, he was ripping everything out of the car.

  Wanda heard him say hello to Austin on the sidewalk.

  Austin wasn’t the mushy type, or the type to draw out a long goodbye. She would greet him with a bittersweet smile, maybe a hug, and she would hide her sadness at his leaving, at her losing the one person she could truly talk to.

  She zipped her bag and said to herself, “Time to close this chapter.”

  33

  He stood with his hips against the side of his car, the way Dirk’s date had stood waiting the other night. She was surprised he didn’t come up the walk to meet her.

  His car was packed. Judging by the way the rear of it sagged, the trunk must have been full. The back seat was crammed with boxes.

  He made no motion of greeting as she approached, but his eyes were fixed on her, his expression serious.

  She put her suitcase down on the sidewalk, along with the shoulder bag containing her laptop.

  “You gonna do some writing at the beach?”