When Watched Read online

“I know.” Lucy smiled without embarrassment. “Curtis pulls them out of the hamper. I should probably throw some of them away,” she said, lifting a white ankle sock off the floor. “That way I would be forced to do laundry more often.” She jammed the little white sock into an overfilled wicker hamper. “I won’t go until I’m completely out of clothes. Hate it too much.”

  “Seriously, I could look anywhere and see socks.”

  “Do you want anything?” Lucy asked.

  “Anything?”

  “Well. Beer or water.”

  Kit laughed. “I’ll take water.”

  “Help yourself, okay? I’ve gotta take him down.” Lucy velcroed a little red coat onto the dog and left.

  Kit ran tap water into a Charlie Brown Christmas mug. She roamed around the room, sipping water and snooping vaguely. Apart from the strewn socks, Lucy’s apartment was relatively bare. There were tall Mexican candles on the floor by her mattress, a tiny cactus on the windowsill. And on the floor there was an old mint green record player with brown accents. Lucy’s possessions looked misplaced, but because there weren’t so many, the wrongness of their arrangement had a childish charm.

  Kit spotted several photos of a younger-looking Lucy, tacked by the bed in a crooked cluster. In one she sat in an auto rickshaw, in another she stood handling fruit in a marketplace. Kit approached the images intently. She sat cross-legged on the bed and stared up at them.

  The door flung open and Curtis raced inside. He leapt onto Kit’s lap and squirmed on his back in ecstasy, biting her fingers gently, his wet paws paddling. Kit stroked his underside, her eyes fastened to the photographs.

  “He likes you,” Lucy said.

  “Does he not like a lot of people?”

  “No. He likes pretty much everyone.”

  Lucy hung her coat on a hook by the door. She pulled off her boots and stockings, then fetched a can of beer from the fridge and tapped the top of it with her fingernail. She turned to Kit, who still sat staring at the photographs. “In India I just went around buying things. You can spend a quarter in like a half hour,” she said, cracking the can open. “It was so beautiful there. Every single person was doing something. It was such a sensory overload, but way softer than America.”

  “I want to travel,” Kit said. She looked at Lucy. “I sort of feel like I have to do it now, while I’m still cute. Like if I wait till I’m old and ugly it won’t happen.”

  “You might be right,” Lucy said and took a swig from the silver can. “But I’m really looking forward to being old and ugly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it’ll be nice to be left alone. I want to get a little house somewhere with grass out front for Curtis. There’s no grass here. I mean, there is grass but you aren’t allowed on it, not with a dog, anyway. It’s like walking through some holy museum.” She stooped to pet Curtis. “Sucks.”

  Kit smiled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I just like when you talk about how much something sucks.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m serious! That’s always how I know I like someone. They’ll be going on about their own hell and it should be tedious to listen to but for some reason it’s not. Something about their face or the way they’re joking about their unhappiness is so . . . attractive.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. It’s like perfume.”

  “Right.”

  Kit set the mug down on the floor and hugged her bony knees to her chest. Curtis trotted over. He lowered his snout into the mug and began lapping.

  “He does that,” Lucy said unapologetically and smiled at the animal. She knelt beside the record player and put the Modern Lovers on. The record turned and crackled. Jonathan Richman sang Roadrunner, roadrunner in his hot, sloppy way and Lucy began to dance, shouting along with the words. Gonna drive past the Stop n’ Shop with the radio on and I love loneliness . . . I love the modern suburban bleakness. I love to drive alone late at night with the radio on!

  “You’re so retro,” Kit marveled, staring up from the bed.

  “I know, right?” Lucy said, catching her breath. “The record player was my grandmother’s but all the records are mine.” She began to sing again, gaily shaking her hips and shoulders. Say hello to that feeling when it’s late at night. Say hello to that highway when it’s blue and white. Lucy was a silly dancer, but in the way only someone who is confident of their sexiness can be. She flailed about like she had no respect for anyone or anything, whipping her gold lion hair from side to side.

  “You’re a good singer,” Kit said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m not kidding! You’re really good.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes and threw herself back into the air. Jonathan sounded more like a loud talker than a singer to Kit. I’m lonely and I don’t have a girlfriend but I don’t mind. He made her wish she were in a band.

  Lucy tired herself out dancing to the next few songs and the two wound up lying on her mattress. They talked about dropping out of college, how it had been the easiest decision in the world. Lucy had studied dance at Sarah Lawrence, which surprised Kit.

  “What was that like?”

  “It was like being abused. Routinely. By people I had no respect for.” She sighed. “What did you go for?”

  “Writing,” Kit said.

  “That makes sense.” Lucy smiled. “So when did you know you were a writer?”

  “I don’t know. About ten, I guess. But I didn’t consider myself a real writer. I had one skill and that was to lie in bed,” she laughed. “I loved being alone in my room. I mean, that was the real love. I just wrote because there was nothing else to do. It didn’t feel special.”

  “So were you a slow kid or a fast kid?”

  “Well I was both.”

  “Me too.”

  Kit raised herself up on both elbows and crawled over to her bag. After some digging she brought her Altoid tin onto the floor and surveyed its sooty contents. She returned to the bed with a crooked smile, a joint pinched between thumb and forefinger.

  “I can’t smoke pot,” Lucy said.

  “Oh. I thought maybe you just didn’t like to at work.”

  “No, I never do. Some people get all focused and brilliant when they’re high but I don’t.”

  “Well I can only focus on like, cleaning my bathroom,” Kit said. She lit the joint and dragged on it.

  “I can only focus on hating myself,” Lucy said. “It’s like I can feel every cell and every pore and I’m hating them one by one. Then I put giant signs on them like CRAZY, FAILED, FAT.”

  Kit laughed and smoke leaked from her mouth. She set the joint down in the open tin, coughing into her fist. She imagined saying: I love that you’re fat. I love everything about you. It was the absolute truth. But she said nothing and strained not to look at Lucy. She heard her heart beat. She began branding herself. LESBIAN. LOSER. WHORE.

  “So you never get paranoid?” Lucy asked.

  “I definitely get paranoid.”

  “Like how?”

  “I just get scared I’ll say what I’m thinking or do something insane. Like tell someone what a shit they are or like, assault them.”

  “You want to assault people?”

  “No! I mean, not really. It’s just this fear of losing it. I mean, I have that fear anyway. Cause you hear about people doing crazy things out of nowhere. And the slight possibility that I could be one of those people, that someone else could be inside me . . . it’s the loneliest feeling. Like what if I didn’t know myself?”

  “You aren’t one of those people.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I just am.”

  Kit smiled. This was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her. You aren’t crazy.

  Curtis curled beside Lucy and laid his ch
in on her breast. She began rubbing his ears and he went limp, collapsing into a state of bliss.

  “How old is he?”

  “I think five or six. I got him two years ago with my boyfriend. We were totally wrong for each other.” She smiled, shaking her head. “I mean, I loved him but we argued constantly.” Lucy looked down at Curtis. He was asleep. “I wonder what it’s like to hear people fighting in another language your whole life.”

  “You hear the tones,” Kit offered. “You understand. There’s probably only one language.”

  “That seems true.” Lucy began stroking Curtis and he roused for a second, then went soft again. “I wish I knew what his life was like before I got him. It’s so strange. Dogs are the repositories of stories we can never know.”

  “That’s probably part of the pleasure of looking into their eyes.”

  Lucy nodded.

  “He’s very cute,” Kit said.

  “You think so?” Lucy said in disbelief. “I mean, I think so but no one else does. I got him from a shelter. He was scheduled to be killed the next day.”

  The dog raised his head and yawned. Up close, Kit could see that he had an underbite and one gluey eye, both of which truly were cute.

  “He destroyed my sofa,” Lucy said and Kit tried to imagine where a sofa could have fit in the apartment.

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. He also hates when I talk on the phone. And when I masturbate.”

  “Oh God. What does he do?”

  “He just stares at me with this totally disgusted look and then pouts for the rest of the day. Actually, he also does that when I cry.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you become an animal.”

  “Exactly.”

  • • •

  The next morning, Kit got a call from Sheila. Ned had made an appointment to see her that afternoon.

  “I can’t believe it,” Kit said.

  “The corn muffin guy?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess he liked you.”

  “It really didn’t seem that way.”

  It was Lucy’s day off. She padded around the apartment in a short silk robe. Pale blue, with a pattern of multicolored fish, the sash tied loose at her waist. It was a tiny garment, her thighs on full display, a flash of her bum here and there. She made coffee and fried eggs over toast, humming all the while, feeding scraps to Curtis with her fingers. “You can come over later if you want,” she said and tucked a blonde strand behind her ear.

  “Alright,” Kit said, smiling slyly. She squatted in the tub, washing her armpits and vagina. Lucy handed her a pink disposable razor. She opened a window and poked her head out. It was oddly warm. Shrunken gray mounds of snow hugged the sidewalk below. Dirty water dripped from the eaves.

  “I can’t believe how warm it is,” Lucy said.

  “And people still say global warming isn’t happening.”

  “Yeah, well, American stupidity is accelerating at the same rate.”

  • • •

  Ned arrived in a mute daze. He wore a flat, melancholy expression and seemed barely to register Kit’s face as she waved from the black leather couch. Sheila led them to the same awful room and Kit sat tentatively on the edge of the bed. Ned removed his coat and sat beside her. He stared at the brown carpet and said nothing.

  “Are you okay?” Kit asked.

  Ned grunted slightly. With averted eyes, he rolled her onto her stomach and hiked up her dress. Kit sat up and pulled her dress off the rest of the way, then lay flat on her front like a routine sunbather. She heard his belt fall to the floor. Ned began jerking off and Kit thought of other things. Lucy dancing. The dog. Donuts on a plate. She studied the nicks and scuffs on the white wall, her head on its side. Ned’s breath quickened. He gasped and Kit sat up, turning to make sure he had come.

  Ned stood naked with his arms at his sides. He was crying.

  Kit stiffened. Goosebumps raised over her body. She considered dashing out of the room naked but Ned lurched toward her. He sank his hot face onto her breasts and sobbed for what felt like minutes, then withdrew his face with sudden embarrassment.

  Ned moved to the edge of the bed with his back to her and Kit didn’t ask what was wrong. She didn’t want to know.

  “My kid is sick,” he said. “Six fucking years old.”

  Kit said nothing. She eyed the shininess between his shoulder blades.

  “I can’t see her. I don’t know what to say to her.” Ned looked over one shoulder desperately, his eyes flashing. “What do you think I should say to her?”

  “I don’t know.” Kit crawled over to him and forced her hand onto the small of his back, patting it. “What does she have?”

  “Leukemia,” he said as though Kit were an imbecile.

  Her hand hardened on his back but she continued to pat him, almost harshly. “It’s okay,” she said uselessly. “It’ll be okay.”

  Ned turned sharply. “You don’t know that. No one does. No one knows what it’s like . . . to cease.”

  Kit removed her hand from his back. She stared into space. “I bet it’s like a drug experience,” she said finally. “Especially if you’re at a hospital and your insides are failing you. Like you probably have odd sensations. You feel really warm or you hallucinate. Then just drift off.”

  “Not everyone goes peacefully. People die screaming.” He had his arms folded.

  “You’re right.”

  “My uncle died screaming. He didn’t want to die.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Bone cancer.”

  They leaned back on the bed and each looked at the other’s feet. Hers were long and bare. He wore red-and-black argyle socks. Kit looked at them awhile and then through them, at nothing, her thoughts wild. She was angry. She hated Ned for dragging some dying little girl into the picture, for crying all over her breasts. She looked down at her knobby knees, the brown beauty mark near her crotch. I’m like Lucy’s dog, she thought. I don’t want to see him become an animal.

  Kit considered her own animal self. A wild thing looking out a window. A wild thing made to be a doll. For a moment she loved herself deeply, whoever she was. It was hard to know in the awful white room. She felt as if a circus tent were draped over her existence.

  Ned uncrossed his arms. “I’ve upset you,” he said and touched her leg gently. It was jarring and repulsive. He had never touched her this way.

  “No. I’m not afraid of death,” she declared. “I’m glad the human experience ends. I mean, what if it didn’t? What if you were just stuck here forever? That would be scarier than death.”

  He seemed to consider this peacefully, folding his arms again. “So what are you afraid of?” he asked and a slight smile tugged one side of his face. It was as if he had just remembered she was a prostitute.

  “Swallowing glass,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because they can’t do anything about it. Glass doesn’t show up in X-rays. It just takes one tiny piece and you die a slow, painful death.”

  “Jesus.”

  “A bartender told me that.”

  They were quiet awhile.

  “I like that you don’t wear makeup,” he said finally.

  “Yeah. I don’t think women should,” she said. “It looks so clownish.”

  “No. Some women should definitely wear makeup. But not anyone your age. Makeup on a youngster is redundant.”

  “You think I’m a youngster?”

  “Well you are.”

  Kit stared at him, glinting with hate.

  “Look at you,” he said. “Your skin.”

  “What?”

  “It’s so new,” he said and touched her cheek softly, letting his fingers rest there. “Youth is a class all its own,” he continued. “You all look alike.”
He took his hand away. “But the fat breaks down—the glow. And you’re left with a kind of specificity. You fall into racial stereotypes.” He pointed to his own face. “And now you can’t tell what I was. I was this beautiful kid.”

  Kit averted her eyes. She folded her arms over her breasts.

  “How old are you, anyway?” he asked. “Twenty-something?”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  Ned smiled greedily. “What’s that like,” he said sarcastically, “being a teenager?”

  “Everyone wants what you have so they try to control you.”

  Ned looked surprised. He went silent and Kit turned to him, her eyes fierce. “Do you like watching two women together?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “There’s another girl here and if you paid us both double, you could watch us.”

  “Watch you what?”

  “You know.”

  “Are you a dyke?”

  “No. I just think you would like her.”

  Ned pondered a moment. He got up and reached into his coat pocket, withdrawing a business card. He placed the white card on Kit’s bare abdomen and broke into a smile.

  • • •

  Kit saw several other men that day and felt nothing. By nightfall, she stood in the bathroom getting high, staring meditatively out the window. Ned remained in her mind, the weight of his face on her breasts. He is a hog for sorrow, she thought. And maybe I am too. Kit had never envisioned this life for herself. This is really happening, she thought. Any awful thing seemed possible. She was afraid of the concrete and cars down there below, of the opportunity she had always to hurl herself out the window. Kit didn’t really want to die, but the fact of having a choice was frightening.

  A flood of bothersome memories surged up as she put her pot away. She remembered her mother saying, “Your job should take a little piece of you that you don’t mind giving.” Kit believed that she had such a job. It’s just my body, she thought. And it didn’t seem like a lot to give away until she considered that it was all she had. This pussy is my only currency. It was a sickening thought.

  Outside, the moon was huge with white fog in front of it. A twitchy streetlight shone on the hoods of cars. Kit walked carefully over silvery areas of ice. She stopped to peruse the bright aisles of a deli and bought an expensive bar of chocolate wrapped in gold foil.