“Well, you can’t miss her. She’s only about five-one, with olive skin, blond hair to her waist, and… well, you know.”
“And great tits,” I said bitterly. “Right?”
Robbie shrugged, embarrassed. “You said it. Not me.”
The descriptions didn’t exactly match. I suspected Robbie was not seeing her with much objectivity. For that matter, neither was Sally.
The offices faced out into a central room that was divided into a maze of cubicles. I wandered through them for a while with no luck. On my way out I stopped at Taylor’s secretary’s office. “I’m looking for a student named Lili? She’s short, with…”
“I know, the most gorgeous black hair in the world. I would hardly call her short, though—oh. There she goes right now.”
I turned, hearing heels click on the polished floor. “Thanks,” I said, and ran into the hall.
And froze.
She looked at me for no more than a second or two. Afterward I couldn’t say how tall she was, or describe the color of her hair. All I saw were her eyes, huge and black, like the eyes of a snake. It must have been some chemical in her sweat or her breath that I reacted to on such a blind, instinctive level. I could do nothing but stare at her with loathing and horror. When her eyes finally let me go I turned and ran all the way back to my car.
I picked Emily up at the sitter’s and took her home and held her for the rest of the afternoon, until Richard arrived, rocking silently on the edge of the couch, remembering the blackness of those eyes, thinking, not one of us. She’s not one of us.
That Friday Richard came home at four. He was a half hour late, no more than that. Emily was crawling furiously around the living room and I watched her with all the attention I could manage. The rest of my mind was simply numb.
Richard nodded at us and walked toward the back of the house. I heard the bathroom door close. I put Emily in her playpen and followed him. I could hear water running behind the bathroom door. Some wild bravado pushed me past my fear. I opened the door and walked in.
He stood at the sink. He had his penis in one hand and a bar of soap in the other. I could smell the sex he’d had with her, still clinging to him. The smell brought back the same revulsion I’d felt at the sight of her.
We looked at each other a long time. Finally he turned off the water and zipped himself up again. “Wash your hands,” I said. “For God’s sake. I don’t want you touching anything in this house until you at least wash your hands.”
He washed his hands and then his face. He dried himself on a hand towel and carefully put it back on the rack. He sat on the closed lid of the toilet, looked up at me, then back at the floor.
“She was lonely,” he said. “I just… I couldn’t help myself. I can’t explain it to you any better than that.”
“Lili,” I said. “Why don’t you say her name? Do you think I don’t know?”
“Lili,” he said. He got too much pleasure out of the sound of it. “At least it’s out in the open now. It’s almost a relief. I can talk to you about it.”
“Talk to me? You
It was like he hadn’t heard me. “Every time I see her she’s different. She seduces me all over again. And there’s this loneliness, this need in her—”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it! Don’t you care what you’ve done? Doesn’t this marriage mean anything to you? Are you just a penis with legs? Maybe you’re sick of me, but don’t you care about Emily? At all?”
“I can’t… I’m helpless….”
He wouldn’t even offer me the dignity of putting it in past tense. “You’re not helpless. You’re just selfish. A selfish, irresponsible little prick.” I saw myself standing there, shouting at him. It wasn’t like me. It was like a fever dream. I felt weightless and terribly cold. I slammed the bathroom door on my way out. I packed a suitcase and put Emily in her carseat and carried her outside. It wasn’t until we were actually moving that she started to cry.
For me it took even longer.
Darla knew everything to do. She told me to finish the story while she drove me to my bank. I took all but a hundred dollars out of the checking account, and half the savings. Then she called her lawyer and set up an appointment for Monday morning. By midnight I had a one-bedroom apartment around the corner from hers. She even loaned me some Valium so I could sleep.
Even with the Valium, the first few days were hard. I would wake up every morning at five and lie there for an hour or more while my brain wandered in circles. Richard had said, “Every time I see her she’s different.” And everyone I asked about her had a different description.
Helpless. He said he was helpless.
After a week of this I saw it wasn’t going to go away. I left Emily with Darla and spent the evening at the library.
