The First Bad Man

CHAPTER THREE

The ironing room and bedroom were my domain, the living room and the kitchen were hers. The front door and the bathroom were neutral zones. When I got my food from the kitchen I scurried, hunched over, as if I was stealing it. I ate looking out the too-high ironing-room window, listening to her TV shows. The characters were always shouting, so it wasn’t hard to follow the plots without the picture. During our Friday video conference call Jim asked what all the commotion was.

“That’s Clee,” I said. “Remember? She’s staying with me until she finds a job?”

Rather than take this opportunity to jump in with accolades and sympathy, my coworkers fell into a guilty silence. Especially Michelle. Someone in a burgundy sweater sauntered across the office, behind Jim’s head. I craned my head.

“Is that — who was that?”

“Phillip,” piped Michelle. “He just donated an espresso machine to the staff kitchen.”

He walked past again, holding a tiny cup.

“Phillip!” I yelled. The figure paused, looking confused.

“It’s Cheryl,” said Jim, pointing to the screen.

Phillip walked toward the computer and ducked into view. When he saw me he brought his giant fingertip right up to the camera — I quickly pointed at my own camera. We “touched.” He smiled and moseyed away, offscreen.

“What was that?” said Jim.

AFTER THE CALL I THREW on my robe and strolled into the kitchen. I was tired of hiding. If she was rude, I would just roll with it. She was wearing a big T-shirt that said BUMP, SET, SPIKE IT… THAT’S THE WAY WE LIKE IT! and either no bottoms or shorts completely covered by the shirt. She seemed to be waiting for the kettle. This was hopeful; maybe she’d reconsidered the microwave.

“Enough hot water for two?”

She shrugged. I guessed we would find out when it came time to pour. I got my mug out of my bin: even though the sink was full of dishes, I had continued using only my set. I leaned on the wall and kneaded my shoulders against it, smiling lazily into the air. Roll, roll, roll with it. We waited for the kettle. She poked a fork at the layers of calcified food on my savory pan as if it were alive.

“It’s building flavor,” I said protectively, forgetting to roll for a moment.

She laughed, heh, heh, heh, and instead of growing defensive, I joined her, and laughing somehow made it funny, truly funny — the pan and even myself. My chest felt light and open, I marveled at the universe and its trickster ways.

“Why are you laughing?” Her face was suddenly made of stone.

“Just because—” I gestured toward the pan.

“You thought I was laughing about the pan? Like ha ha you’re so kooky with your dirty pan and your funny way of doing things?”

“No.”

“Yes. That’s what you thought.” She took a step toward me, talking right into my face. “I was laughing because”—I felt her eyes move over my gray hair, and my face, its big pores—“you’re so sad. Soooo. Saaaad.” With the word sad she pressed her palm into my chest bone, flattening me against the wall. I made an involuntary huh sound and my heart began to thud heavily. She could feel this, with her palm. She got a revved-up look and pressed a little harder, then a little harder, pausing each time as if to give me a chance to respond. I was getting ready to say Hey, you’re about to cross a line or You’re crossing the line or Okay, that’s it, you’ve crossed the line, but suddenly I felt that my bones were really being harmed, not just my chest but my shoulder blades, which were grinding into the wall, and I wanted to live and be whole, be uninjured. So I said, “Okay, I’m sad.” The kettle began to whistle.

“What?”

“I’m sad.”

“Why would I care if you’re sad?”

I quickly gave a nod of agreement to show how completely I was on her side, against myself. The kettle was screaming. She pulled her hand away and poured the water into a Styrofoam cup of noodles — not appeased, just revolted by our affiliation. I walked away, a free woman on rubbery legs.

I curled up on my bed and held my globus. What was the name of the situation I was in? What category was this? I had been mugged once, in Seattle in my twenties, and that had had a similar feeling afterward. But in that case I had gone to the police and in this scenario I couldn’t do that.

I called my bosses in Ojai. Carl answered immediately.

“Business or pleasure?” he said.

“It’s about Clee,” I whispered. “It’s been lovely having her, but I think—”

“Hold on. Suz — pick up! Clee’s making trouble! Not that phone — the hall one!”

“Hello?” Suzanne’s voice was almost inaudible through the crackling connection.

“You’re on the crappy phone!” Carl shouted.

“I’m not!” Suzanne yelled. “I’m on the hall one! Why do we both need to be on at the same time?” She hung up the hall phone but could still be heard distantly through Carl’s phone. “You get off the phone, I’ll talk to Cheryl alone!”

“You’ve been snapping at me all day, Suz.”

Suzanne picked up the phone but paused before putting it to her mouth. “Can you go away? I don’t need you monitoring my every move.”

“Are you going to offer her money?” Carl said in a whisper that seemed louder than his regular voice.

“Of course not. You think I’m just handing out—” Suzanne put her hand over the phone. I waited, wondering what there was to argue about since they both agreed I should not be offered money.

“Cheryl!” She was back.

“Hi.”

“Sorry about that, I’m not having fun in this marriage right now.”

“Oh no,” I said, although this was the only way they ever were, like this or loudly entranced by each other.

“He makes me feel like shit,” she said, and then to Carl, “Well, then go away — I’m having a private conversation here and I can say what I like.” And then to me: “How are you?”

“Good.”

“We never thanked you for taking Clee, but it means so much”—her voice became thick and halting, I could see her mascara starting to run—“just to know she’s getting exposed to good values. You have to remember she grew up in Ojai.”

Carl picked up.

“Please excuse the theatrics, Cheryl, you don’t have to listen to this. Feel free to hang up.”

“Fuck you, Carl, I’m trying to make a point. Everyone thinks it’s such a terrific idea to move out of the city to raise your kids. Well, don’t be surprised when that kid is pro-life and anti — gun control. You should see her friends. Is she going on auditions?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can you put her on?”

I wondered if I was still allowed to hang up if I wanted to.

“She might need to call you back.”

“Cheryl, hon, just put her on.” She could tell I was scared of her daughter.

I opened my door. Clee was eating ramen on the couch.

“It’s your mom.” I held out the phone.

Clee took it with a swipe and strode out to the backyard, the door slamming shut behind her. I watched her pacing past the window, her mouth a little spitting knot. The whole family exerted tremendously toward each other; they were in the throes of passion all the time. I held my elbows and looked at the floor. There was a bright orange Cheeto on the rug. Next to the Cheeto was an empty Diet Pepsi can and next to the can was a pair of green-lace thong underwear with white stuff on the crotch. And this was just the area right around my feet. I touched my throat, hard as a rock. But not yet to the point where I had to spit instead of swallow.

Clee stormed in.

“Someone named”—she looked at the screen—“Phillip Bettelheim called you three times.”

I CALLED HIM BACK FROM my car. When he asked me how I was, I did my equivalent of bursting into tears — my throat seized, my face crumpled, and I made a noise so high in pitch that it was silent. Then I heard a sob. Phillip was crying — out loud.

“Oh no, what is it?” He had seemed fine when we touched fingers through the computer.

“Nothing new, I’m okay, it’s just the thing I was talking about before,” he sniffed soggily.

“The confession.”

“Yep. It’s driving me nuts.”

He laughed and this made room for a larger cry. Gasping, he said, “Is — this okay? Can I just — cry — for a while?”

I said of course. I could tell him about Clee another time.

At first the permission seemed to stifle him, but after a minute he broke through to a new kind of crying that I could tell he liked — it was the crying of a child, a little boy who can’t catch his breath and is out of control and won’t be consoled. But I did console him, I said, “Sh-sh-shhh,” and “That’s it, let it out,” and each of these seemed to be exactly right, they allowed him to cry harder. I really felt a part of it, like I was helping him get somewhere he’d always wanted to go and he was crying with gratitude and astonishment. It was pretty incredible, when you thought about it, which, as the minutes wore on, I had time to do. I looked at the curtains of my own house and hoped Clee wasn’t breaking things in there. I doubted if any man had ever cried this much, or even any adult woman. We would probably switch roles at some point, down the road, and he would guide me through my big cry. I could see him gently coaxing me into wet tears; the relief would be overwhelming. “You look beautiful,” he’d say, touching my tearstained cheek and bringing my hand to the front of his pants. With a little fiddling the car seat went almost flat; as his wail renewed itself I quietly unclasped my pants and slid my hand down. We’d blow our noses and take off our clothes, but only the clothes we needed to. For example, I would leave my blouse and socks and maybe even shoes on and Phillip would do the same. We’d take our pants and underpants off completely but wouldn’t fold them up because we’d just have to unfold them to put them back on. We’d lay them out on the floor in a way that would make them easy to put on again later. We’d get side by side in the bed and hug and kiss a lot, Phillip would get on top of me and insert his penis between my legs and then, in a low, commanding voice, he would whisper, “Think about your thing.” I’d smile, grateful for the permission to go within, and shut my eyes — transporting myself to a very similar room where our pants were laid out on the floor and Phillip was on top of and inside me. In a low, commanding voice he said, “Think about your thing,” and I was flooded with gratitude and relief, even more than last time. I shut my eyes and was again transported to a similar room, a fantasy within a fantasy within a fantasy, and it continued like this, building in intensity until I was so far inside myself that I could go no further. That’s it. That’s my thing, the thing I like to think about during intercourse or masturbation. It ends with a sudden knotting in my groin followed by a very relaxing fatigue.

As I reclasped my pants he began to slow down, to try to catch his breath. He blew his nose a few times. I said, “That’s it, there you go,” which made him cry a little more, perhaps just politely to acknowledge my words. Finally it was all quiet.

“That felt really, really good.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was incredible.”

“I’m surprised. I usually don’t cry well in front of other people. It’s different with you.”

“Does it feel like we’ve known each other for longer than we really have?”

“Kind of.”

I could tell him or I could not tell him. I decided to tell him.

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” I ventured.

“Okay.” He blew his nose again.

“Do you know what it is?”

“Give me a hint.”

“A hint. Let’s see… actually, I can’t. There are no little parts to it, it’s all big.”

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes.

“I see a rocky tundra and a crouched figure with apelike features who resembles me. She’s fashioned a pouch out of animal gut and now she’s giving it to her mate, a strong, hairy pre-man who looks a lot like you. He moves his thick finger around in the pouch and fishes out a colorful rock. Her gift to him. Do you see where I’m going?”

“Kind of? In that I see you’re talking about cavemen who look like us.”

“Who are us.”

“Right, I wasn’t sure — okay. Reincarnation?”

“I don’t relate to that word.”

“No, right, me either.”

“But sure. I see us in medieval times, huddling together in long coats. I see us both with crowns on. I see us in the forties.”

“The 1940s?”

“Yes.”

“I was born in ’48.”

“That makes sense because I was seeing us as a very old couple in the forties. That was probably the lifetime right before this one.” I paused. I had said a lot. Too much? That depended on what he said next. He cleared his throat, then was silent. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything, which is the worst thing men do.

“What keeps us coming back?” he said quietly.

I smiled into the phone. What an amazing thing to be asked. Right now, tucked into the warmth of my car with this unanswerable question before me — this might have been my favorite moment of all the lifetimes.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I quietly leaned my head against the steering wheel and we swam in time, silent and together.

“What are you doing for dinner on Friday, Cheryl? I’m ready to confess.”

THE REST OF THE WEEK glided by. Everything was fantastic and I forgave everyone, even Clee, not to her face. She was young! Over a standing-up lunch in the staff kitchen Jim assured me that young people these days were a lot more physically demonstrative than we had been; his niece, for example: very physical girl.

“They’re rough,” I said.

“They aren’t afraid to show their feelings,” he said.

“Which is maybe not such a good thing?” I suggested.

“Which is very healthy,” he said.

“In the long run, yes,” I said. “Perhaps.”

“They hug more,” he said. “More than we did.”

“Hug,” I said.

“Boys and girls hug, unromantically.”

The conclusion I came to — and it was important to come to a conclusion because you didn’t want these kinds of thoughts to just go on and on with no category and no conclusion — was that girls these days, when they weren’t hugging boys unromantically, were busy being generally aggressive. Whereas girls in my youth felt angry but directed it inward and cut themselves and became depressed, girls nowadays just went arrrrgh and pushed someone into a wall. Who could say which way was better? In the past the girl herself got hurt; now another unsuspecting, innocent person was hurt and the girl herself seemed to feel just fine. In terms of fairness maybe the past was a better time.

On Friday night I put on the pin-striped dress shirt again and a very small amount of taupe eye shadow. My hair looked great — a little Julie Andrews, a little Geraldine Ferraro. When Phillip honked I scooted through the living room, hoping to bypass Clee.

“C’mere,” she said. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, eating a piece of white toast.

I pointed at the door.

“Come here.”

I went to her.

“What’s that noise?”

“My bracelets?” I said, shaking my wrist. I had put on a pair of clangy bracelets in case the men’s shirt made me look unfeminine. Her big hand closed around my arm and she slowly began squeezing it.

“You’re dressed up,” she said. “You wanted to look good and this”—she squeezed harder—“is what you came up with.”

He honked again, twice.

She took another bite of toast. “Who is it?”

“His name’s Phillip.”

“Is it a date?”

“No.”

I focused on the ceiling. Maybe she did this all the time and so she knew something about skin, like that it could withstand a certain amount of pressure before breaking. Hopefully she would keep that amount in mind and not go over it. Phillip knocked on the front door. She finished her toast and used her free hand to gently lower my chin so that my eyes were forced to meet hers.

“I’d appreciate it if you told me when you have a problem with me, not my parents.”

“I don’t have a problem with you,” I said quickly.

“That’s what I told them.” And we stayed like that. And Phillip knocked again. And we stayed like that. And Phillip knocked again. And we stayed like that. And then she let me go.

I opened the door just wide enough to slip out.

When we were safely out of the neighborhood I asked him to pull over and we looked at my wrist; there was nothing there. He turned on the interior lights; nothing. I described how big she was and the way she had grabbed me and he said he could imagine she might squeeze a person thinking it was a normal amount of squeezing, but to someone delicate like me, it might hurt.

“I’m not really delicate.”

“Well, compared to her you are.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

“Not for a few years.”

“She’s big-boned,” I said. “A lot of men think that’s attractive.”

“Sure, a woman with that kind of body has a fat store that allows her to make milk for her young even if her husband isn’t able to bring meat home. I feel confident about my ability to bring meat home.”

The words milk and fat store and meat had fogged up the windows faster than leaner words would have. We were in a sort of creamy cloud.

“What if, instead of going to a restaurant,” Phillip said, “what if we ate dinner at my house?”

He drove like he lived, with entitlement, not using the blinker, just gliding very quickly between lanes in his Land Rover. At first I kept looking over my shoulder to check if the lane was actually clear or if we were going to die, but after a while I threw caution to the wind and sank back into the heated leather seat. Fear was for poor people. Maybe this was the happiest I’d ever been.

Everything in his penthouse was white or gray or black. The floor was one vast smooth white surface. There were no personal items — no books or stacks of bills, no stupid windup toy that a friend had given him as a gift. The dish soap was in a black stone dispenser; someone had transferred it from its plastic container to this serious one. Phillip put his keys down and touched my arm. “Want to know something crazy?”

“Yes.”

“Our shirts.”

I made a shocked face that was too extreme and quickly ratcheted it down to baffled surprise.

“You’re the female me.”

My heart started swooping around, like it was hanging on a long rope. He said he hoped I liked sushi. I asked if he could point me toward the restroom.

Everything in the bathroom was white. I sat on the toilet and looked at my thighs nostalgically. Soon they would be perpetually entwined in his thighs, never alone, not even when they wanted to be. But it couldn’t be helped. We had a good run, me and me. I imagined shooting an old dog, an old faithful dog, because that’s what I was to myself. Go on, boy, get. I watched myself dutifully trot ahead. Then I lowered my rifle and what actually happened was I began to have a bowel movement. It was unplanned, but once begun it was best to finish. I flushed and washed my hands and only by luck did I happen to glance back at the toilet. It was still there. One had to suppose it was the dog, shot, but refusing to die. This could get out of hand, I could flush and flush and Phillip would wonder what was going on and I’d have to say The dog won’t die gracefully.

Is the dog yourself, as you’ve known yourself until now?

Yes.

No need to kill it, my sweet girl, he’d say, reaching into the toilet bowl with a slotted spoon. We need a dog.

But it’s old and has strange, unchangeable habits.

So do I, my dear. So do we all.

I flushed again and it went down. I could tell him about it later.

We ate without talking and then I saw his hand shaking a little and I knew it was time. He was about to confess. I must have sat across from him at a hundred meetings of the board, but I had never let myself really study his face. It was like knowing what the moon looks like without ever stopping to find the man in it. He had wrinkles that carved down from his eyes into his cheeks. His hair was dense and curly on the sides, thinner on the top. Full beard, messy eyebrows. We smiled at each other like the old friends we on some level were. He exhaled a long breath and we both laughed a little.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk with you about,” he began.

“Yes.”

He laughed again. “Yes, you have probably gathered that by now. I’ve made a big deal out of something that is probably not such a big deal.”

“It is and it isn’t,” I said.

“That’s exactly right, it is and it isn’t. It is for other people, but it isn’t for me. I mean, not that it isn’t a big deal — it’s huge, just not—” He stopped himself and exhaled with a long schooooo sound. Then he lowered his head and became very still. “I… have fallen in love… with a woman who is my equal in every way, who challenges me, who makes me feel, who humbles me. She is sixteen. Her name is Kirsten.”

My first thought was of Clee, as if she were in the room, watching my face collapse. Her head thrown back, a husky heh, heh, heh. I pressed my fingernail into a paper-thin slice of ginger.

“How did you”—I tried to swallow but my throat was completely locked—“meet Kristen?”

“Kir—like ear”—he touched his ear, a pendulous lobe with a tuft of gray hair sprouting from the hole—“sten. Kirsten. We met in my craniosacral certification class.”

Heh, heh, heh.

I nodded.

“Amazing, right? At sixteen? She’s so ahead of the game. She’s this very wise, very advanced being — and she comes from the most unlikely background, her mom is totally out to lunch and involved in drugs. But Kirsten just”—he gasped with pained eyes—“transcends.”

I pretended to take a sip of wine but actually deposited the spit that was collecting in my mouth.

“Does she feel the same way?”

He nodded. “She’s actually the one pushing for consummation.”

“Oh, so you haven’t…?”

“No. Until recently she was seeing someone. Our teacher, actually. He’s a young man, much closer to her age. A really neat guy — in some ways I think she should have stayed with him.”

“Maybe he’ll take her back,” I offered.

“Cheryl.” He suddenly put his hand on my hand. “We want your blessing.”

His hand had a heat and weight that only real hands do. A hundred imaginary hands would never be this warm. I kept my eyes on his blocky, primitive fingernails.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I want to, and she wants to — but the attraction is so powerful that we almost don’t trust it. Is it real or is it just the power of the taboo? I’ve told her all about you and our relationship. I explained how strong you are, how you’re a feminist and you live alone, and she agreed we should wait until we got your take on it.”

I spit into the wine again. “When you were explaining our relationship, what did you say?”

“I said you were…”—he looked down at my red knuckles—“someone I had a lot to learn from.” With a firm push he pressed his fingers between my fingers. “And I told her how perfectly balanced you are in terms of your masculine and feminine energies.” We began making a small undulating wave, threading and rethreading our hands. “So you can see things from a man’s point of view, but without being clouded by yang.”

Now we were doing it with both hands and looking each other square in the eyes. Our history was bearing down on us, a hundred thousand lifetimes of making love. We rose and stood with just a hot inch between us, our palms pressed together.

“Cheryl,” he whispered.

“Phillip.”

“I can’t sleep, I can’t think. I’m going crazy.”

The inch was half an inch now. I was throbbing.

“We have no elders,” he moaned. “No one to guide us. Will you guide us?”

“But I’m younger than you.”

“Perhaps.”

“No, I am. I’m twenty-two years younger than you.”

“I’m forty-nine years older than her,” he breathed. “Just tell me if it’s okay. I don’t want someone like you to think I’m — I can’t even say it. It has nothing to do with her age — you can see that, right?”

Each time I inhaled, the soft dome of my stomach pressed against his groin, and each time I exhaled it gently pulled away. In, out, in, out. My breathing grew sharper and faster, a thrusting kind of breath, and Phillip was gripping my hands. In another second I would use my innocent, fingerless paunch to grope and explore him, shimmying up and down. I stepped away.

“It’s a tough decision.” I picked my dinner napkin off the floor and placed it carefully over the row of uneaten pink fish meats. “And one I take seriously.”

“Okay,” said Phillip, straightening up and blinking as if I had suddenly turned the lights on. He followed me to the closet, where I found my purse and jacket. “And?”

“And I’ll let you know when I know. Please take me home now.”

CLEE WAS HALF-ASLEEP WATCHING TV. When I came in she looked up, surprised, as if it wasn’t my house. Just the sight of her pretty face and big chin made me furious. I threw my purse down on the coffee table, which was where I used to put it before she moved in.

“You need to get your act together and start looking for a job,” I said, straightening the chair. “Or maybe I should call your parents and tell them what’s been going on here.”

She smiled slowly at me, her eyes narrowing.

“What’s been going on here?” she said.

I opened my mouth. The simple facts of her violence slid out of reach. Suddenly I felt uncertain, as if she knew something about me, as if, in a court of law, I would be the one to blame.

“And anyways,” she said, picking up the remote, “I have a job.”

This seemed unlikely.

“Great. Where?”

“The supermarket, the one we went to.”

“You went to Ralphs and filled out an application and had an interview?”

“No, they just asked me — last time I was there. I start tomorrow.”

I could see a man’s trembling hands pinning a name tag to her bosom and I remembered what Phillip said about her fat store. Just a couple of hours ago we were sitting in his car and I was thinking, Let’s not waste our time talking about her when we have so much else to say to each other. I lifted the end of her sleeping bag and yanked out one of the couch cushions.

“This couch isn’t meant to be used as a bed. You need to flip the cushions so they don’t get permanently misshapen.” I flipped it over and started pulling at the other one — the one she was sitting on. My muscles were tensed; I knew this was a bad idea but I kept tugging at the cushion. Tug. Tug.

I didn’t even see her get up. The crook of her arm caught my neck and jerked me backward. I slammed into the couch — the wind knocked out of me. Before I could get my balance she shoved my hip down with her knee. I grabbed at the air stupidly. She pinned my shoulders down, intently watching what the panic was doing to my face. Then she suddenly let go and walked away. I lay there shaking uncontrollably. She locked the bathroom door with a click.

PHILLIP CALLED FIRST THING IN the morning.

“Kirsten and I were wondering if you’d had you a chance to think it over.”

“Can I ask one question?” I said, pressing a bruise on the back of my upper calf.

“Anything,” said Phillip.

“Is she gorgeous?”

“Will that impact your decision?”

“No.”

“Stunning.”

“What color hair?”

“Blond.”

I spit into a hanky. My globus had swollen in the night — I couldn’t swallow at all anymore.

“No, I haven’t decided.”

For the next three hours I lay in bed, my head where my feet should be. He was in love with a sixteen-year-old. I had spent years training myself to be my own servant so that when a situation involving extreme wretchedness arose, I would be taken care of. But the house didn’t function as it once had; Clee had undone years of careful maintenance. All the dishes were out and the general disarray was beyond carpooling — there was nothing between me and filthy animal living. So I peed in cups and knocked over one of the cups and didn’t clean it up. I chewed bread into a puree, moistening it with sips of water until I could slurp it down as a horse would. Only liquids could slip past the globus, and only with a swallowing scenario. The Black Stallion for bready water. For plain water I was Heidi, dipping a metal ladle into a well. It’s from the end, when she’s living in the Alps. For orange juice I was Sarge from the Beetle Bailey comic, where Sarge and Beetle Bailey go to Florida and drink all-you-can-drink orange juice. Glug, glug, glug. It worked because it wasn’t me, it was the character swallowing, offhandedly — just a brief moment in a larger story. There’s a scenario for every beverage except beer and wine because I was too young for alcohol when I invented this technique. I let my mouth hang open so the spit could roll out easily. Not just a sixteen-year-old, a stunning blond sixteen-year-old. She was driving him crazy. Someone came in the back door. Rick. The TV blasted on. Not Rick.

She was home from Ralphs: it was later than I thought. I pulled myself upright and listened to her flipping channels arrhythmically. My back was sore where she threw me down, but this was almost a welcome distraction from the globus. My neck felt like an object unrelated to me, a businessman’s misplaced briefcase. When I tapped my throat it made a bony sound, and then suddenly the muscle began to tighten, and tighten, like a pulled knot — I panicked, shaking my hands in the air — no, no, no—

And then it locked.

I’d read about this online but it had never happened to me. The sternothyroid muscle becomes so rigid that it seizes up. Sometimes permanently.

“Test,” I whispered, to see if I could still talk. “Test, test.” Very carefully, without moving my neck, I reached for the glass bottle on my bedside table. Using the Heidi scenario I drank all the red. Nothing happened. I gingerly carried my neck to the phone and called Dr. Broyard, but he was in Amsterdam; the message invited me to call 911 or leave my name and number for Dr. Ruth-Anne Tibbets. I remembered the two stacks of business cards in their Lucite holders — this was the other doctor. The one in charge of watering the fern in the waiting room. I hung up, then called back and left my name and number. The message felt too short for a therapist.

“I’m forty-three,” I added, still whispering. “Regular height. Brown hair that is now gray. No children. Thanks, please call back. Thank you.”

DR. TIBBETS SAW PATIENTS ON Tuesdays through Thursdays. When I suggested today, a Thursday, she countersuggested next Tuesday. Six days of liquids; I might starve. Sensing my anguish, she asked if I was in danger. I might be, I said, by next Tuesday. If I could come right away, she said, we could meet during her lunch hour.

I drove to the same building and took the same elevator to the same floor. Dr. Broyard’s name on the door had been replaced by DR. RUTH-ANNE TIBBETS, LCSW — a plastic placard that slid into an aluminum strip. I looked down the hall and wondered how many other offices were shared. Most patients would never know; it had to be unusual for a person to need the services of two different unaffiliated specialists. The receptionist’s area was empty. I read a magazine about golf for fifteen seconds until the door swung open.

Dr. Tibbets was tall with flat gray hair and an androgynous horsey face; she reminded me of someone but I wasn’t sure who. This was probably the sign of a good therapist, seeming familiar to everyone. She asked if the room was warm enough — there was a small space heater she could turn on. I said I was fine.

“What brought you in today?”

A bento box sat on top of her day planner. Had she stuffed herself as quickly as possible after the previous patient? Or was she waiting, faint with hunger? “You can eat your lunch if you want, I don’t mind.” She smiled patiently. “Begin when you feel ready.” I turned sideways on the leather couch but quickly discovered there wasn’t enough length for my legs, so I swung myself upright again; she wasn’t that kind of therapist.

I told her about my globus hystericus and how my sternothyroid had locked. She asked me if I could recall any triggering incidents. I didn’t feel ready to tell her about Phillip so I described my houseguest, the way she moved around the living room, swinging her giant, heavy-lidded head like a cow, a dense, stenchy bull.

“Bulls are male,” said Dr. Tibbets.

But that was just it. A woman talks, too much — and worries, too much — and gives and gives in. A woman bathes.

“She doesn’t bathe?”

“Almost never.”

I described her total disregard for my home and acted out the different things she had done to me, pressing on my own chest and squeezing my own wrist. It was hard to yank my own head back.

“This might not look painful because I’m doing it to myself.”

“I don’t doubt that it’s painful,” she said. “What have you done to resist?”

I released my arm and sat back down.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you fight back?”

“You mean self-defense?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, that’s not what this is. It’s really more a case of very bad manners.” I smiled to myself because it sounded like I was in denial. “Have you heard of Open Palm? Self-defense that helps you burn fat and build muscle? I pretty much invented that.”

“Have you yelled?”

“No.”

“Or said no to her?”

“No.”

Dr. Tibbets was quiet now, like a lawyer who had no further questions. My face crumpled, and my globus swelled painfully; she held out a box of Kleenex.

I suddenly realized why she looked so familiar.

She was Dr. Broyard’s receptionist. It was outrageous. Was she even Ruth-Anne Tibbets or was she Ruth-Anne Tibbets’s receptionist too? What had she done with Dr. Tibbets? This needed to be reported. Who could I call? Not Dr. Broyard or Dr. Tibbets, since this usurping, masquerading woman would undoubtedly answer the phone. I slowly gathered my purse and sweater. It was best not to agitate her or let on.

“This has been a great help, thank you.”

“You have thirty more minutes.”

“I don’t feel that I need it. It was a twenty-minute problem and you addressed it.”

She hesitated, looking up at me.

“I’m going to have to charge you for the whole session.”

I had already prewritten the check. I took it out of my purse.

“If possible, please donate the thirty minutes to someone who can’t afford therapy.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Thank you.”

CLEE WAS AT RALPHS, SO I stayed home and applied hot compresses, working to gradually relax my throat. Occasionally I pressed a warm metal spoon against it; some people say that helps. Just when I thought I might be making progress, Phillip called.

“I’m seeing Kirsten tonight. I’m picking her up at eight.”

I said nothing.

“So should I expect to hear from you before eight, or…?”

“No.”

“Not at all tonight? Or just not by eight?”

I hung up. A shaking fury quietly rose through my chest into my throat. The lump began to seize up again, tightening like an angry man’s fist. Or my fist. I looked at my veiny hands, slowly curling them into balls. Is this what she meant by fight back? The thought of the receptionist’s smug, horsey face made my globus even harder. I jumped up and scanned the spines of my DVD collection. I probably didn’t even have one. I did: Survival of the Fittest. It wasn’t our most recent release; Carl and Suzanne had given it to me for Christmas about four years ago. Of course I had many opportunities to learn self-defense in the old studio, just never the desire to embarrass myself in front of my coworkers. The great thing about our DVDs (and streaming video), besides burning fat and building muscle, is you can do them alone without anyone watching. I pressed play.

“Hi! Let’s get started!” It was Shamira Tye, the bodybuilder. She doesn’t compete anymore but she was still very expensive and hard to get. “I recommend working out in front of a mirror so you can watch your tush shrink.” I stood in the living room in my pajamas. Kicks were called kicks but punches were called “pops.” “Pop, pop, pop, pop!” Shamira said. “I pop in my sleep! And soon you will too!” A knee-slam-to-groin movement was presented as the can-can—“Yes you can-can!” If someone was strangling you, “the butterfly” would break their hold while toning your upper arms. “It’s a catch-twenty-two,” Shamira mused at the end. “With your new ripped bod, you may actually get attacked more often!” I fell to my knees. Sweat ran down the sides of my torso and into my elastic waistband.

Clee came home at nine o’clock with a box of trash bags. I hoped this was an olive branch, since we were out of trash bags and I didn’t really have any intention of fighting her. But she used all of the bags to gather up the clothes and mildewed beach towels and food items and electronics that apparently had been in her car this whole time. I watched her park the four bags against the wall in the corner of the living room. Each swallow took concentration but I kept at it. Some people with globus only spit; they have to bring a spittoon with them everywhere they go.

At eleven fifteen Phillip texted. SHE WANTS ME TO TELL YOU I RUBBED HER THROUGH HER JEANS. WE DON’T THINK THAT COUNTS. NO ORGASM. All caps, as if he was yelling out of his penthouse window. Once read, the image was impossible to keep at bay — the tight jean crotch, his stubby, furry hands rubbing wildly. In the living room I could hear Clee crunching ice like cud. The chewing was so loud I began to wonder if she wasn’t doing it sarcastically, to aggravate me. I pressed my ear against the door. Now she was imitating the imitation — it was a chomping sound with a double set of quotation marks around it. Too late I realized there would be no end to this line of thought — her self-impersonation quadrupled, and then sixteenified, her eyeballs popping out of her head, ferociously rubbed jeans, teeth like fangs, tongue whipping around the room, ice flying everywhere. I spit on my sleeve, yanked open the door, and marched over to the couch. She looked up at me from her sleeping bag and quietly regurgitated a single ice cube.

“Could you please not make that sound please?” I shouldn’t have said please twice, but my voice was low and my eye contact was direct. I held my hands in front of me in a position of readiness. My heart was hitting the inside of my body so hard it made a knocking sound. What if she did a move that wasn’t on the DVD? I glanced down to be sure my stance was grounded.

She squinted at me, taking in my hovering hands and planted feet, then tilted her head back and filled her mouth with ice. I grabbed the cup out of her hand. She blinked at her empty palm, slowly chewed the ice, swallowed it and looked past me at the TV. It wasn’t going to happen; we weren’t going to fight. But she could see I wanted to. She could see I’d gotten all geared up — a forty-three-year-old woman in a blouse, ready to brawl. And she was laughing about it, right now, inside. Heh, heh, heh.