Chapter Seventeen
Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Duke Ellington’s brass section wails from my record player. I sit on my bed, knees drawn toward my chest, a deadly-boring Semiotics textbook in my lap. I pretend to make sense of the 148 pages of it I’ve been assigned. Jordan is on the divan, corduroy-clad legs stretched out a thousand miles before him, his statistics textbook spread open, his face taut with concentration. I sneak looks at him whenever I lose focus, which becomes more and more frequent the further into the chapter I get.
He takes school a lot more seriously than I do. I’m ever happy to skip class, blow off homework, reschedule a tutoring appointment - especially if it means being with him. He is diligent in his studies. This is the fifth time in two weeks he’s come over to spend the night, but studied straight up until we went to bed.
“I wish my tutoring students worked as hard as you,” I say. I’d say anything at this point, as an excuse to engage him. His head raises and mouth parts, as if to respond, though his eyes stay focused on the book.
“What’s that?” He’s still reading. I have too much energy to sit still, so I get up. Light another Nag Champa, open the window a bit more to offset the smoke, and flip the record before returning to the bed.
“I was just marveling at your extraordinary powers of concentration. Isn’t it time to take a make-out break, already? I’m a little distracted by your presence, over here.”
His passion is what cemented my attraction to him. Sure, he does for my eyes what sugar does for my tongue. But his intense interest in learning pinned down the ephemeral erotic draw, and has given me something real to admire him for. I bow before his mind, worship his curiosity and intensity, adulate how quantum physics and history and - of all things!- seafaring light him up. I must have assumed that depth of passion would automatically transfer; that I would eventually be the object of his rapt attention. It is not working out that way.
“Yeah, I guess I could quit now.” He reads another page, seeming reluctant to close the book and put it down. He still hasn’t looked at me. I study the pattern of phoenixes blazing across my turquoise crepe-silk kimono, over my favorite bubblegum pink slip. He flips through his notebook. Makes a few notes. Without looking up says, “Would you set the alarm for me?” I can feel the proverbial rug slowly, almost imperceptibly, pulling under my bare feet. I search for a hammer to nail it to the floor.
“I’ve got cinnamon bread for French toast. You will stay for breakfast, right?”
“Sorry, Pearl. It’s just, I’ve got this test in the morning. I want to get onto campus early then go over my notes one more time.” My shoulders are up around my ears, the muscles granite.
“Fine”. I walk to the clock radio on my nightstand under the window. “What time do I set it for?”
He is again flipping through the notebook. “Six should do it.”
Six?!? It’s already past midnight. He only arrived an hour ago, and his face has been submerged in that book the entire time. I don’t like this murky feeling stealthily surrounding me, like my car just drove off a bridge, and the water is seeping in. I glare at the clock’s digital numbers as I speed them one minute at a time through their rotation, ticking off the time until his departure. I begin to get the feeling I had when at age 6, we drove over Lake Pontchartrain and suddenly all I could see in any direction was sky, bridge and water.
Where did the land go, Daddy? I asked my father at the wheel. “We’re over the ocean now, darlin’. There won’t be no land til we get to Cuba, he answers. Cuba?? But Daddy, how long will that take? I ask. Just a couple of days, sugar, he replies. Daddy, can’t we turn around? Pretty please? I don’t want to drive over the ocean. What happens if we run out of gas? Or get hungry? Or a hurricane comes up? My daddy begins to laugh loud enough to crack the windshield, and my terror turns to a fiery feeling I can’t name. Then he tells me he’s only joshing; it’s not the ocean, just good ol’ Lake Pontchartrain, and the land will show up in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
It feels like the joke is on me again tonight.
The red numbers of the alarm clock have gone mushy. I force my eyes to focus and see that I’ve rolled right past six all the way to 8:43am. A flash flood of frustration wells up hot and acid in the back of my throat. Maybe I can talk him into staying a little longer? I test the waters.
“Are you sure it has to be that early?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about breakfast. Maybe this weekend.”
Maybe. What a hateful word. Now I have to sit here holding down the TIME SET and ALARM buttons through another twenty-hour cycle. That’s another day you’ll spend waiting, Pearl. I tighten my grip on the clock. The red numbers blur and the frustration rises higher, til I see nothing. My left hand yanks the cord out of the wall and my right hurls the entire clock radio out the open window, the cord trailing behind, until it lands on the cement paving outside with a crack.
“What the hell?” He looks at me with pinched eyebrows. Suddenly I don’t know myself what happened. The frustration is gone and now I just feel shocked, and ashamed around the edges.
“Sorry. It was bugging me. I need a new one, anyway. I’ve had that stupid thing since I was twelve years old.” I feel about twelve at this moment, ugly and awkward and unsure of anything, except that I want him to stay the night and the morning and the next day, possibly, forever, in fact.
“I’ll just go home now. I feel bad making you wake up so early.”
The full force of my efforts backfire in my face. My wanting him to stay longer has just made him want to leave. This was the only chance we had to be undistracted in each other’s company. I’m out of ideas of how to keep him here longer. I’ve already lost my composure this evening: I don't want to risk making the situation worse by revealing how distraught I am. How do I best extricate myself from this mess? I don’t even need to decide; my body shuts down for me.
“If you want.” My heart is still raw, the Randall wound barely crusted over; to open myself to Jordan would be to douse that wound in hydrochloric acid. No. I will not repeat the risk of rejection, looming so imminent on the horizon, when I want so very much from Jordan. I tell myself to keep my voice level, my face smooth. Do not let any more feelings show.
I slowly lay down on the bed, on my side, my face away from him, careful to make no abrupt movements that could convey the turmoil I contain. I listen to him order his belongings. He sits down on the edge of the bed and I know that in a moment he will say goodbye and leave. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, I hear his shoes drop lightly - one then the other, his belt slide out of the loops around his waist and clatter gently to the floor.
“I’d rather stay here. If you don’t mind.” His voice is very soft and low.
“Okay. As long as that’s what you want.” Please, tell me that’s what you want. Tell me you want to be with me. Tell me something - anything - to staunch this riptide of doubt, I think.
He switches off the overhead light. The lamp on my nightstand leaves a small circle of illumination around which the rest of the room disappears. He carefully makes his way across the bed, on hands and knees, to me.