RSS 2.0 FeedCerulean Sky
The day she meets him is sweltering, a shimmering, choking heat that wilts the soul. She steps out of her car and crosses the parking lot to the bank where a line of people awaits an ATM. She considers going inside where it’s cooler, but when the short guy at the keypad pockets his cash and leaves, the line moves up, and it doesn’t seem so long. Sweat beads, forms rivers in the creases of her body. A woeful glance in the direction of her car where air conditioning, cool and forgiving, is just a key-turn away. And there he is.
Average height, thin but not too thin. Dressed in tailored, navy slacks, a shirt and tie. Mid- to late twenties perhaps. There is an athleticism to his walk, a graceful cadence she’d like to watch, but she drops her eyes instead. He gets in line behind her, and a few seconds later she looks back, and he is staring at her. He smiles. She looks away, but not before she notes his eyes. A startling azure. Cerulean sky.
Worries: how does her hair look from the back? How fat does she look? How long before perspiration darkens the back of her blouse?
The woman at the machine punches numbers while her son ─ a fussy, impatient three-year-old ─ pulls at her arm. Suddenly the boy breaks free and dashes for the parking lot. A liberated toddler en route to vehicular catastrophe. At the last moment, when the boy is a step from the curb and an on-coming SUV, the guy with the cerulean eyes captures him and returns him to his mother. The woman thanks him, thanks him again, and then scurries away, scolding her child. Disaster has been averted, order restored. On his way back in line, he smiles at her again and something passes between them, a seductive undercurrent. Sensation: buoyancy, a silly little effervescence bubbling up inside her, like champagne.
Her turn at the ATM. She feels his eyes on her back, assessing. She withdraws $300 for no reason in particular. Later she will say she did it because she wasn’t thinking clearly but now ─ feeling his gaze on her and remembering the way their eyes held ─ she feels exhilarated. A few more screens and beeps and her transaction is complete. She turns, shoulders her purse and feels his eyes on her as she steps away.
At her car she considers stalling, dropping her keys or taking extra time to open her door. See if he’ll check her out again. Reality: gorgeous guys like him aren’t interested in chubby girls like her. She throws the car into reverse and almost runs him over. He comes around to her side of the car, and she powers down the window. “Sorry about that,” she says.
He leans down so his face is even with hers, smiles, and offers his hand. “My fault. I’m Michael.”
For a moment she sits there stupidly, a deer in headlights. She waits for the blow. For him to say something such as “You dropped your receipt” or “Can you tell me where the nearest post office is?” Heat pours through the window so fast the air conditioning can’t keep pace with it, blow-dryer air that is frizzing her hair and causing sweat stains. At last she takes his hand. “I’m Jennifer.”
“Ah, a name descended from Guinevere.”
That he would know this, say it, sends a thrill through her, and she feels that champagne-for-insides feeling again.
He says, “Listen, I don’t normally do this but, are you single? You know, seeing anybody?”
“No,” she says.
“Would you like to go out sometime?”
Would she like to go out? Is he kidding? “Sure, that would be nice. When?”
He says, laughing, “Well, how about tonight?”
Jennifer sits on her couch. Family members stare sappily at her from matted frames, thrilled for her. She places the nearest photo face down, the one of her parents taken on a cruise in the Bahamas. The urge to eat ice cream ─ lots of it ─ flickers but she resists. Instead, she wills herself to think of something, anything, that doesn’t involve trans-fats and corpulent parents in bathing suits. Jennifer closes her eyes, leans her head back, and burps loudly into the room. When she replays the meeting at the car, she is excited all over again. She pictures how dinner will go, what Michael will say. “What do you do?” he’ll ask.
The question calls to mind her dream, the one she’s had over and over the past few months. She’s stranded on a deserted island with a dozen strangers, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the first day their leader, a retired army general, has them all stand in a line on the beach. One by one he asks them what they do, what their skills are, so he can determine what role each of them will play. There is a builder, a doctor, a botanist, an engineer and so on.
As her turn nears, Jennifer becomes anxious. Her only consolation is the octogenarian standing next to her, a woman she is sure will be more useless than Jennifer. When the leader asks the old lady what she can do, she tells him she is a famous poet. The survivors whoop with joy. There is hugging. At first Jennifer does not understand. What good is a poet on a deserted island? Then it comes to her, the knowledge washing over her like the waves on the shore: when someone important goes missing, the world won’t stop looking. Even if you’re eighty with yellow teeth and sagging skin. Finally it’s Jennifer’s turn.
“What can you do?” the general asks.
“I process insurance forms.”
The man frowns at her and moves on down the line.
The second time she has the dream she says, “I’m great at paperwork and…I can unjam a fax machine.” By the third dream, Jennifer is desperate. “I can recite all of Vivian Leigh’s lines in Gone with the Wind. Olivia DeHaviland’s, too.” Each time she struggles to find something she can do, something meaningful. Each time her responses are pathetically worse.
They survive despite the rigors of island life, which consist mostly of violent storms and periods of famine. Although their diet is mostly fuselage and kumquats, Jennifer puts on weight. Pound after pound after pound. She bloats, expands, becomes amorphous. In contrast, her fellow survivors dwindle down to sinewy, lithe, little things. The conclusion is always the same: she sleeps in her double-wide hut hungry and alone, awaiting a rescue that never comes.
Jennifer drifts out of the dream and takes in the white walls, worn armchair and dying plant on her windowsill, all of which seem, at this moment, pathetic representations of her life. Plain, dull, wanting. And yet…he had noticed her, Michael. He had smiled. Truism: nothing ventured, nothing gained. For the first time in Jennifer’s life, it’s more than a dieting pun.
Jennifer arrives exactly ten minutes late, a maneuver she hopes will give the impression she has a busy, fulfilled life. Good looking people dine at tiny round tables on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Votives flicker, silver tinks against china. The delicious aroma of butter and garlic floats around her, taunting and flirting.
She enters a dark interior where she is greeted by a hostess who looks as if she hasn’t eaten for at least a decade, maybe two.
“Do you have a reservation?” the hostess says. Her eyes walk over Jennifer, spend a little too much time on her mid-section, and then move back to her face.
“I’m not sure,” Jennifer says. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Umm-hmm,” the hostess says; she doesn’t quite believe this is true. She consults the seating diagram as if there might be instructions: Where to Place the Fat People. She says, turning, “Oh, yes, there’s a gentleman waiting.”
Jennifer follows her eyes. Michael is sitting with one arm draped over the back of his chair watching the exchange. He grins and gives a little wave; then she is following the hostess, their perfumes colliding and struggling for dominance on the way to the table.
Michael rises, dismisses the hostess with a curt nod. He grins at Jennifer and does a slow appraisal, eyes moving over her hair, her dress, back to her face again. “You look great.”
Jennifer’s cheeks are in flames. Her heart may stop. Michael pulls out her chair, and she sits. Around them, soap opera types with good teeth and perfect complexions talk quietly. Irony: this morning, just this morning, she was at work wondering whether she should do Burger King or KFC extra-crispy for dinner.
If possible, Michael is even better looking. While the lighting is a bit too dim to do justice to his eyes, she notices the clean square lines of his jaw, the softness of his lips, the lock of dark hair falling recklessly onto his forehead. She wants to brush it back into place with her fingertips. She wants to run her fingers through it.
“I’m so glad you could make it on such short notice,” Michael says. “Would you like something to drink?”
Choices: if she orders lemonade, and he gets a scotch, she will look like a prude. If she gets a gin and tonic, and he asks for iced tea, she will look like an alcoholic.
“Do you like wine?” he asks. “We could have a bottle if you like. A red.”
A waiter appears, hands them menus, then suggests a Pinot Noir that satisfies Michael. The man scurries away, and he is all hers again.
“Have you been here before?” Michael arcs his hand with an encompassing gesture. “The seafood is very good, and the pasta’s excellent.”
Jennifer opens her menu and stares at Michael over the top of it. Riddle: where did he come from? She decides on the scallops and closes the menu. The waiter appears and opens the bottle with a showy flourish, a magician in a hurry. Michael swills the Pinot, raises the glass to eye level, contemplates its depths, sniffs and takes a sip. Jennifer might swoon. Memory: her last date, a guy named Rick, who, after three beers, attempted to impress her by burping the alphabet backwards.
Michael is raising his glass, and she takes hers. A clink. “To Guinevere,” he says. “To fortuitous meetings at bank machines.”
Their eyes meet over the sip, and she looks away and back again. No one has ever toasted her. Ever.
Realization #1: She loves him.
Realization #2: She loves him, even if he is a terrorist.
They laugh over the incident with the toddler at the bank machine. How she thought the boy was road kill for sure, how he knew just what the little guy was going to do. He loves kids, wants his own someday. He’s an uncle already, can she believe it? He’s one of six children ─ two brothers, three sisters. A large Italian family. He went to State U, studied engineering and is employed by a firm in the Prudential building where he’s been for a year.
Jennifer fills herself up with him, the wine lending its own seductive warmth. Food arrives, more wine is poured.
Michael says, “Have you ever been to Europe? No? You should seriously consider Italy, France and Portugal.” He tucks into his swordfish and asks her about herself.
Jennifer tells him she works at the hospital, that she admits patients. She makes her job sound wonderful, as if discovering the cure for cancer can’t hold a candle to making copies of people’s insurance cards. Truth: her job sucks. On a scale of one to ten, it’s a minus two.
The meal progresses. Jennifer tells Michael of her father, the accountant, her mother, the homemaker, her sister, the waitress. Details ─ her father’s unemployment, her mother’s obesity, her sister’s divorce ─ are left out.
Jennifer watches Michael bring a forkful of swordfish to his mouth, watches him chew, watches his lips move as he tells her more of his family. None of it registers. Right now Michael and she are on vacation in Italy/France/Portugal. They are holding hands, walking the beach at sunset, they are ordering room service, champagne and caviar. No, wait. Not caviar. She hates caviar. Now she is meeting his parents. They have wonderful Italian accents. She is making a spectacular impression. They want to be her in-laws.
“Jennifer?”
Her daydream evaporates, and she realizes Michael has been speaking to her. She has no idea what he’s just said.
“Dessert?” There’s an irritation in his voice, a flatness.
She looks down at her plate. To her horror, she can see her reflection in it. “Oh, no,” Jennifer says. “I couldn’t possibly.” Rule: never finish all your food on a date, especially a first date. “I’ll just go to the ladies room.”
Michael watches her remove her purse from the back of her chair like he is a different person. A muscle twitches in his jaw. His blue eyes impale her. Jennifer is mortified and drops her eyes. Michael’s hands are dark against the white linen tablecloth. His nails are dirty, something she hadn’t noticed before, and this tiny flaw, this small little defect, makes her like him all the more. Then Michael shifts his weight, smiles, and the tension in the air is gone.
In the bathroom she breaks into tears on the toilet. She almost blew it. Blew it. There he was, asking her about dessert, and she’s nowhere to be found. Jennifer composes herself, emerges from the stall. She does her best to repair her face which now looks like she has a rash or the chicken pox, take your pick. Warning: pay attention. Don’t screw this up.
When Jennifer returns to the table, Michael is paying the check. Another awkward moment while he drops fifties onto a tray. She doesn’t know whether to sit or remain standing. She sits. She searches for signs that she has not blown her chances irrevocably.
Michael moves his wallet to his back pocket and says, “Do you like foreign films? There’s a theater within walking distance, the Equinox. A film’s playing in about a half hour. It’s in French, with subtitles. I know it’s probably not your thing ─ “
I’d love to go,” Jennifer says. “Really.”
Michael leans in and grins, then says sotto voce, “Okay, but I have to warn you. We’ll practically have the place to ourselves. You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?”
Images: she is butter; warm and melting. He is chocolate; dark, sensual, smooth.
They walk the few blocks leisurely. The sun sits low, casting sidewalks and store fronts in sherbet hues: yellows, oranges, pinks. The heat has abated somewhat, is less of an assault. Michael tells her of his eldest sister who has breast cancer and is undergoing chemo. Jennifer is surprised he’s telling her this, such personal information, but then maybe it’s a sign that he feels he can trust her, that there is a longevity to their coupleness. She tries to concentrate but finds herself only half listening. Mantra: I will lose weight. I will diet and exercise. I will lose weight. I will diet and exercise.
They enter the theater lobby, so dark and cold it’s cave-like. When Jennifer’s eyes adjust, she admires the rich crimson carpets, the high, ornate ceiling. Michael buys two tickets and orders a large popcorn and soft drink from a disinterested blonde smacking gum at the concession stand. When they enter the theater Jennifer sees only half a dozen people dispersed around the room.
They settle into their seats, she dropping her purse on the floor between them, he sipping contentedly on his drink. The room darkens. Previews flash, and Michael’s knee comes to rest against hers. The main feature starts, and Michael’s hand brushes against her wrist when he reaches for the popcorn in her lap. She thinks of caresses, of stolen kisses in the dark. Panic: she has no breath freshener. Right now scallop scum is amassing like soldiers in her mouth. The bucket of popcorn crashes to the floor.
“Oops,” Michael says. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Jennifer says and bends to get the bucket.
“No, no,” he says. “I’ll get it.” Michael finds the bucket, puts in on the empty seat next to him, slides his arm around Jennifer.
She pretends to watch the screen, pretends she can still read the subtitles. A warm, champagne-bubble flush spreads through her, and she’s thankful the theater is dark, that he can’t see how nervous ─ how not very good at this ─ she is.
Michael removes his arm a few minutes later and takes a cell phone from his jacket pocket. ”My sister had more chemo today, and I want to call her and see how she’s doing. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” Sympathy: poor sister. Poor Michael.
Michael works his way back down the aisle and disappears. Jennifer chews her lip and forms a plan. After the movie she’ll suggest they go back to her place where she’ll be equal parts alluring and hard to get. Relief: thank God she shaved her legs and hid her dirty laundry. Minutes pass. Jennifer wonders how the call’s going, if the sister’s okay, if she remembered to hide the photos of her family under her bed. Math: if she loses a pound a week, she’ll be down to her perfect size in seventy weeks, more than a year away. If she loses a pound a day, she’ll be looking good in ten weeks.
More time passes. Jennifer’s not looking at the screen anymore because her eyes are wearing a groove from Michael’s seat to the exit. Questions: should she go out and ask Michael if everything is okay? Will that look too nosy? Prying? Jennifer decides to wait. She counts the seats in the front row. Twenty-four. She calculates the calories consumed at dinner. 750. When she can’t wallow in the not-knowing anymore, when it’s been a half hour since Michael left, she enters the lobby. Except for the ticket guy and the concession chick, no one.
Jennifer asks the girl, “Have you seen a guy in a suit? Talking on a cell phone? Tall, dark hair?”
The blonde blows an enormous bubble, which pops and leaves pink sticky on her upper lip. “Nope.”
“I saw him,” the ticket guy says. “He left about a half hour ago. He was in a hell of a hurry.”
“You guys get in a fight or something?" the girl asks.
Anxieties: Michael doesn’t have her number, he doesn’t know her last name. Michael won’t be able to contact her. Jennifer exits the theater, walks slowly back toward the restaurant. She creates possibilities, plays out scenarios. The sister isn’t doing so well after the chemo. Maybe she’s learned it’s worse, terminal even, and Michael wants to be with her. He doesn’t have time to tell Jennifer he’s got to leave, or he’s in such a panic over his sister, he forgets to tell her goodbye.
At the parking garage, Jennifer reaches inside her purse for her keys and pulls out her wallet instead. No, this wallet isn’t hers. Hers is gone. She opens the wallet, spots the photo of the young girl on the driver’s license. No cash inside. Empty slits where credit cards used to live. Impression: darkness descending, a cloud passing over the sun.
Jennifer stares at the phone in her hand. The clock on her nightstand reads 9:21am in cheery, bright green numerals. She tosses the phone on the bed, shuffles to the kitchen in the XXL T-shirt she slept in. On the way, she catches sight of her hair in the mirror. A bird’s nest of tangles, like a bomb has gone off on her crown. Last night’s eye makeup has slipped and smudged, giving her a creepy Marilyn Manson look. She pulls mayonnaise and bread from the fridge and makes a sandwich, eats until fullness embraces her like a hug. She makes another, feels better.
Back in the bedroom, the clock reads 9:27. She sits down on the bed, pokes at the flesh on her thighs. Her face crumbles when she spots last night’s outfit on the floor. A dress now infected with false charm, reeking with smooth deception. Promise: she will burn it. She punches buttons on the phone, waits for wires to connect.
“Hello?” a girl’s voice says.
”Is this Carrie Sparks?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Jennifer McFadden. I’m calling because I, um…found your wallet.”
A snort from the other end of the line, then Carrie says, “I’ve been expecting your call.”
“I…what?”
“Let me guess. You had a really great date last night with a guy we’ll call Michael, but he disappeared on you suddenly. The next thing you know you’ve got my wallet in your purse instead of yours.”
Prayer: oh God oh God oh God.
“If you haven’t called your credit card companies, do it now,” Carrie continues. “But it’s probably already too late. His little girlie-girl has probably already been on another friggin’ spree.”
Jennifer blurts, “His girlie-girl?”
“Yeah, the hot little number of his who takes your credit cards for a little retail therapy minutes after he dashes on you. They’ve got a file on this guy as thick as a phone book, you know. They’ve been doing this for months, he and his girlfriend. City to city. The cops have got a sketch of them, can you believe it? A friggin’ sketch. They’ll want you to look at his mug, verify he’s the one.”
Collapse: she is cold so cold sliding sliding…
There’s silence on the line. Carrie is waiting for Jennifer to say something, and when she doesn’t, Carrie says, “Look, I know what you’re going through. I went through the same thing a week ago. I couldn’t believe any of it. After all, he was pretty suave, you know? The way he was dressed, the place he took me for dinner. Of course, I started piecing things together after, like he never told me his last name, like he met me at the bank where I’d just cashed my entire pay check. Naturally, he acts like he can’t wait to have dinner with me ─ otherwise I might spend the wad of money I’d just withdrawn, you know? Jerk.”
Flashback: Ah, a name descended from Guinevere.
“He told me he was an architect,” Carrie rattles on. “What a load of crap! He’s a con man, that’s what he is. You know what the police said about the wallets he leaves behind from the other girls? They’re his calling cards. Can you believe it? Friggin’ psycho.”
Flashback: To fortuitous meetings at bank machines.
Carrie says, “Do you know where he took me after dinner? A jazz club. I hate jazz. But I’m thinking, ‘Okay, this guy’s hot. I’ll go with it.’ So what does he do? He spills his vodka tonic and switches wallets right under my nose. Some girl named Heidi.”
Flashback: You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?
“Know what his girlfriend bought with my Visa? A TV. Flat screen. Girl, I hope the place he took you was nice because it was on me.”
Jennifer disconnects.
Over the next week Jennifer quits her job, she gives herself a bad haircut, she stocks her freezer with six gallons of ice cream, the most it will hold. She paints her apartment in colors named after food: Custard Cream for the kitchen, Perky Pistachio for the living room, Gregarious Grape for the bedroom. She sleeps most of the day, paints through the night. She doesn’t return her mother’s phone calls. For the first time in a decade Jennifer eats without compunction. She gains weight. She gains some more. Fact: she loves each day more than the last.
On Saturday morning a stranger’s voice on the answering machine wakes her. “Uh, my name is Kelly,” the voice says. “I’m looking for ─
Jennifer picks up. “Hello?”
“Is Jennifer McFadden there?”
“You found her wallet, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Is Jennifer there?”
“No.” Clarity: Jennifer doesn’t live here anymore.
She stumbles through the plane wreckage, plumes of smoke obscuring the pounding surf a short distance away. The leader is calling them to gather at the beach. They assemble, clothes hanging off them in trailing shreds. One by one, he asks them, “What can you do? What are your skills?” One by one they respond. When the leader gets to Jennifer, she isn’t worried. This time she knows how it’ll go.
“You’ll see,” she says. “You’ll see what I can do.”
They settle into a routine. Bodies shrink before Jennifer’s eyes. The women become scarcely more than swimming bones, the men piles of muscle held together by loose, sun-reddened skin. In contrast, Jennifer grows. She becomes enormous, a giant, unwieldy mass. She sees their guarded glances, the firm set of their mouths when they pass by her as they often do, for she has grown too large to move much. Eventually, she cannot gather her own food. They bring her what little fuselage and kumquats remain, deposit them at the door of her hut, move silently away.
She awakens one morning and knows this is the day. She bathes in the surf, tidies her hair, languishes inside the coolness of her hut. At noon, they assemble at the fire. She is waiting for them, stretched out on her back. They arrange themselves around her as the fire is stoked, the skewer secured. A sound, a dry clacking, and she turns. It is the old woman, the poet, licking her lips in anticipation. A dry tongue moving over little yellow teeth. Their utensils wink in the sun, trios of cutlery ─ knife, fork, spoon ─ poised at the ready.
. She looks up at the sky, a perfect cerulean blue, and something ─ some vague memory ─ stirs. What is it? But there is no time to think. Her moment has arrived.