Snorkel

I left my dorm room to meet my mom early so that I would be sure to get there on time but when I got there she of course had already been waiting.

She looked the perfect businesswoman in her feminine suit. Her suit shouted to me as I approached the table. It said “I’m a sexy woman but I’m still just as good as a man.”

“Shut up,” I answered silently back.

“What was that you said honey?” My mom asked as I sat down.

“I didn’t say anything, Mom.”

My mother checked her watch. “Did you enjoy your walk over?” I knew why she was asking. She had offered to pick me up and take me to the restaurant so that I wouldn’t be late, but I’d told her that I preferred to walk.

“It was good. Fresh air.”

“Good,” she smiled her big fake smile.

I scanned the menu quickly, and when the waitress came to see what we wanted to drink, we were both ready to order our food. After the waitress walked away, swinging her butt in her short skirt, my mom sighed in warning.

“So, honey, how are classes this semester?”

“The same.”

She smiled that fake smile again. “What one is your favorite?” I tried to remember a time when her smile was genuine, and ended up inscribing smiles in my napkin with my fork.

“Honey?”

“What?” I snapped quickly, laying my fork down.

“Never mind,” she sighed.

The waitress came with our drinks. I added sugar to my iced tea. I liked to watch the sugar collect on top of the ice cubes, and then gradually sink down and fall through my iced tea. It reminded me of the snow things that you shake and watch the snow fall. I imagined a small Christmas time village in the bottom of my glass. The people wore snorkels except when they were thirsty, then they took the snorkels off and drank some of the iced tea.

My mom was talking about work. I could never listen when my mom talked.

When I took a sip from my iced tea one of the little people got sucked into my straw and I swallowed her. Because the straw was clear I could see her going through it in the middle of all the iced tea. It reminded me of that Willy Wonka story and the boy that goes through the chocolate tubes. I thought it was pretty funny until I saw that her boyfriend was sad that she was gone. So I very carefully positioned the straw, and sucked him up too. I hope they find each other in my stomach.

My mom moved on to talking about my little sister and how a boy in the neighborhood was bothering her. I really wanted to hear about my sister but I just couldn’t concentrate.

I ended up sucking the girl’s parents and siblings into my stomach too, and was about to start on the boy’s family when my mom began to ask me about school again.

“How’s that 8:30 class that you’re taking? Do you really get up for it?”

“Sometimes I do. Not all the time.” Slurp. There goes the boy’s mother.

“And how is it?”

“it’s okay. Pretty easy. Teacher’s funny.”

“Do you have any grades in it yet?”

Slurp. There goes his father. “Nope. I have a midterm soon.”

“Emily, I need you to listen to me very carefully for a moment, and don’t say anything or draw any conclusions until I’m done. Okay?”

Slurrrrp. I managed to suck up the boy’s brother and sister at the same time. I looked up at my mom. Something was wrong. Something more than usual. Her face didn’t look right. I felt bad for not paying attention to her. “What’s up, Mom?”

“A old friend of mine from college might meet us here, just to talk a little bit because he knows a little bit more about what may be upsetting you . . .”

Now all the people that had been friends with the girl, her boyfriend, and their respective families were sad too. I could see that this would be a never-ending task if I continued like this. I wasn’t even sure that they were all finding each other in my stomach. I sure hope they were. I considered a moment, sucked the girl’s and boy’s respective best friends into my stomach, then stopped. I drew the line there. An arbitrary line, but that was that. The girl’s best friend’s best friend pleaded with me silently, but I could not be budged.

“. . . so that hopefully next year you can feel better about things.”

I looked down at the table. “I’m not coming back next year.” The glass covering on the top of the table made the tablecloth underneath look smudged.

“Why not?”

“I’m just not.” I turned my glass of iced tea around. The glass moved but the village stayed in the same spot. The parents of the best friends that I had sucked up were crying now, but I had made my decision and stuck to it. Some of the people who knew them were muttering through their snorkels about the unfairness of bureaucracy, but before I could properly address their complaint something else impinged on my awareness.

I looked up at my mom. “Did you say that a friend of yours was meeting us here?”

She sighed, again. “Yes, honey. He might be able to help you feel better.”

I gripped the table hard so that my knuckles looked funny and white. I watched them, the way the white and red went together. “I thought it was just going to be you and me.”

“It was, honey, but I decided to ask him along because I think talking to him would help you.”

“You told me that we would be alone.”

“Well I obviously changed my mind.”

“I didn’t agree to this.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. When I talked to you it was going to be just you and me.”

I let go of the table. My fingers were stiff and ached. It felt good. As they throbbed I allowed my rage to subside. It leaked out through them and dripped onto the carpet, staining it an odd shade of green. The sight made me sick. I concentrated on my napkin. It was white with a little raised design along the edges. I traced the pattern with my knife. There was something important that I was going to do before my mother distracted me but I couldn’t remember what it was. My eyes traveled over the smeary table back to my iced tea glass. There was a girl in a yellow sundress singing and dancing barefoot on her front lawn. I smiled. Inside the house her father was explaining to her mother that in order for society to be maintained rules must be made and there couldn’t be any exceptions to them. The mother shook her head sadly as she watched the little girl playing. From the way they were talking I think there was something wrong with the little girl.

“Hi.” I jumped. A tall man was standing in front of me.

“Joshua!” It was my mother this time but again I jumped. “It was so good of you to meet us here.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he replied, looking at me not her.

Confused, I returned to my iced tea. The glass was empty. Rather, it contained iced tea and a few ice cubes and a straw, but that was all. Alarmed, I looked back at the man. He had seated himself. The waitress brought him a menu. He seemed unaware of my being perturbed. Calmly he ordered a coffee. I looked at my iced tea. The village was still missing. I looked back at him. He was looking over the menu.

He caught me looking at him and warmly extended his hand to me, “Emily, I assume?”

“Yes,” I replied as his warm hand encompassed mine.

“I’m Joshua, as you may have gathered.” He was altogether too warm.

“Oh.” I felt empty.

I pressed my fingers on the table one by one, watching each one change shape slightly as I pressed down. Next I began tapping my fingernails on the table, listening to the sound that they made as they hit the glass.

When the waitress brought him his coffee he thanked her. She took his order and then left. I resented the way the cream flowed and swirled into his coffee and the sugar just disappeared as soon as it hit the surface.

He turned to me. “How are you?”

“I’m alright. How are you?”

“Good,” he smiled. Warmly.

He was too focused on me. I looked at my mother. She was playing with her necklace with an strange look on her face. She was looking at Joshua. He was looking at me, I was looking at her, she was looking at him. To break up this odd triangle I turned my attention to my iced tea. It was like a signal. He wrapped one hand around his cup of coffee and my mother stood up, murmuring something about the ladies room. I hate it when people are dainty about things like that. It’s a bathroom for Christ sakes, not a “ladies” room. It’s not a place where the woman of high society gather to sip their tea and gossip, it’s a pee place.

He was looking at me again. “How are you really?”

I gripped my iced tea tightly with both hands. The cold felt good.

“Just as I said.” I avoid telling people the truth about how I feel whenever possible. “How are you really?”

He looked amused. “Just as I said.” His face turned soft. “I want to ask you something. Now be honest. Do you want to be here right now?”

“Why are you trying to get so personal with me? You don’t know me at all,” I answered, stabbing my napkin with my fork. “Are you a shrink?”

“I work as a school counselor. Emily, I’d like to get to know you. Your mother asked me to help you and I can’t do that if I don’t hear about how you really feel and think.”

I sighed, rubbing my forehead with my hand. His hand was still wrapped around his damn cup of coffee. It was probably even warmer now. He was looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“I’m tired, okay?”

He leaned towards me a little bit, excited to be getting a response. “What are you tired of?” His eyes gleamed.

I took a sip of my iced tea. Still no little people. “I’m tired of everybody asking me these stupid questions.” I said it quietly, but looked him straight in the eyes so that he knew I meant it. He was only mildly taken aback. I’d never looked in his eyes before. They were oddly compelling. They tried to draw me out but I refused.

This time he broke the gaze. “Fair enough,” he said quietly to his coffee as my mom and the waitress arrived simultaneously.

The waitress put down my mom’s and my food. “Yours’ll be ready in about five minutes,” she told Joshua. He nodded to her.

My mom began eating. Her steak was rare and bled when she cut it. I watched as she greedily shoved the blood-soaked pieces in her mouth, barely chewing before swallowing noisily. Joshua sipped his coffee. I looked down at my own dinner. The red sauce on my pasta looked like thick blood. Briefly a row of sharp metal nails appeared, forming a perfect circle around the edge of my plate. My heart began to beat too fast and I couldn’t breathe.

“Aren’t you going to eat, honey?”

“Um.” My mom’s fingernails were red, like the blood. I tried to look at my glass of iced tea but it kept on going in and out of focus. “I feel sick.” I stood up and headed for the door before I even realized what I was doing. Once outside I took a big breathe of the evening air. It was moist and smelled like spring. I was shaking. I sat down on the steps. I took out a cigarette and lit it. I watched the smoke form its curls and waves, and drift up against the dark blue dome of the sky. After a couple of drags I realized that I only felt sicker, and threw the cigarette away. A waste. I stood up, slipped my hands into my pockets, and wandered around the building a few times. It was small and ugly, but in a way that pleased me. The wind caressed me, lifted me up, put me back down. It carried me away to better times and places without taking me anywhere at all. My feet crunched on gravel. I leaned against the building and closed my eyes, letting the smell and feel of things soak into my body, purging and cleansing me. After a few minutes I reluctantly headed back inside.

When I walked in I could see my mom and Joshua talking, but by the time I got to the table they had stopped. As I sat back down I checked my iced tea. The small girl in the yellow dress was sitting in the middle of the glass all by herself. There were no houses, no other people, not even any grass. She was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. I blinked and she disappeared. The glass was empty again. Except for the iced tea and straw of course. “Emily,” Joshua said as I began to eat my pasta, “I want to apologize to you for being here without you knowing ahead of time that I would be. I was under the impression that you were looking for someone to talk to. But I’m not going to expect you to talk if you don’t want to.”

The pasta was good. I looked up at my mom. Her mascara was smudged and she was blowing her nose. Joshua looked annoyed. I think he hurt her feelings. My mom’s a very sensitive person. You wouldn’t think so if you met her, but she is. I feel sorry for her when I remember to. She really works hard and always tries to do what’s best for everybody. I wanted to tell her that everything was okay but no words were coming out. Joshua distracted me. “Emily?”

“Hmm?” I turned to him.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Umm.. that I didn’t have to talk?”

“Well, yes. But after that.”

“Oh. No. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I just asked if you were feeling any better.”

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

He was eating a salad. The vegetables crunched in his mouth. He got some dressings on his lips and licked it off, then wiped his mouth with his napkin to make sure it was all gone.

“Emily, honey,” my mother was pleading, “do you want to tell Joshua a little bit about why you dislike school so much?” I played with my pasta. “It’s just not what I want to be doing right now.” I ate a couple bites. “My classes are pointless and you have to do things the way the professors want them done to get good grades. I don’t feel like playing that game anymore. Sure, I could get good grades. But what for? They’re hollow. Proof that I know how to play along with a system that shouldn’t even exist.” I ate a little more. “Right now I just don’t want to be tied down by schedules and things. Go to class at this time. Read this book. Well maybe at that time I feel like eating cookies and milk in bed and reading Doom Patrols. I want to be able to do that.”

“Read what?” Joshua asked.

“Doom Patrols. It’s the book I’m reading right now.”

“What’s it about?”

“Society.” I was puzzled and annoyed. He had interrupted my train of thought.

“Honey, that’s just the way life is. What about a job? Work is the same way. That’s something that you have to deal with throughout your life, and the sooner you learn to deal with it, the better,” my mom put in. Of course. How many times had we talked about this?

“I know that Mom. But I just can’t right now.”

She looked unconvinced. She didn’t think I fully realized what that meant. She was worried about me. I understand my mom. The problem is that she doesn’t understand me.

Suddenly I could sense Joshua looking at me intently. He waited for me to look up at him before he spoke. “Why not?” I looked back down at my plate. “What?”

“Why can’t you?”

My mind went blank. I rubbed my forehead. I couldn’t even begin to conceive of a reply. Why can’t I? I stared at my pasta without blinking for so long that everything started to go black. I blinked once, then did it again. They were waiting for a response. “Because . . I . . can’t.”

There was a strained pause. I waited.

“Well, when can you?” My mother ventured tentatively.

I could feel my anger and frustration building up inside of me like some dark and oily syrup, dripping off my intestinal organs and into my blood stream, pumping through my veins, arteries, capillaries even. In my fingertips, my legs. I turned my glass of iced tea around and around. It was half empty by now. The glass of ice tea clattered occasionally against the glass of the table. It sounded sort of like the sound my fingernails made when I tapped them against the table, only louder and more emphatic.

“Later.”

“But when? You can’t just keep putting it off until what? Until you end up a bum lying in a gutter somewhere?”

I could barely keep my voice under control. “I just need some time off and I’ll be fine. I’m not going to be a bum can’t you just . .” I stopped myself. I couldn’t tell my mom to shut up. I didn’t want to hurt her.

I could feel Joshua watching us, analyzing and judging us. There was a long pause. I ate some of my pasta, but the tension began to weigh on me until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I could tell that they were both trying to figure out what to do next. I stood up.

“Where are you going?” My mother was alarmed.

“I’ve gotta pee.”

The bathroom was small and dirty. It was constructed strangely so that I could barely close the door of the stall once I got inside it. After I peed I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. My face stared back at me blankly. I turned away quickly. As I was turning the light hit the metal on my earrings. I saw it in the mirror and it reminded me of the nails again. I took my earrings out and put them in my pocket.

When I got back to the table Joshua was holding my mom’s hand. I guess he was comforting her for having such a psychotic daughter. I was glad that he wasn’t hurting her feelings anymore. I knew that when he had hurt her feelings earlier it was over me and I can’t stand causing anyone pain, especially not my mom. When I sat down he dropped her hand. I think he was kind of embarrassed. It was the first time that I really noticed this sort of tension between them. Old college friends. Hmm.

I began eating my pasta but I realized that they were still waiting for me to make the first move. I smiled at them. “So, what else do you guys want to hear about?”

They both looked uncertain.

“Well,” this time it was Joshua trying to ask the right question, “what about that class that you failed last semester?” I froze. “You mean about the nails?”

“Um . . yeah.” He seemed a little uncomfortable.

I was too. I didn’t know if I could talk about this. “Well it sounds like you already heard about it.”

“Well, yes,” he glanced quickly at my mom. “But I wanted to hear you tell it.”

I drank some of my iced tea. It was almost gone now.

“But if you don't want to talk about it that’s okay,” he added quickly. Almost fearfully.

“No, it’s okay.” I don’t know why I said that since it was obviously a lie. I thought a moment. I wanted to make this as quick and succinct as possible. I don’t know why I had to stop and think either. This was all I ever thought about anyway.

“My Social Problems class was held in this one building. It’s an old building, and one of the most beautiful on campus. There’s this little ledge right above the doorway into the building, and I see it every time I go to enter. On this ledge is a row of nails. All along the ledge in a line with the pointy part sticking straight up. The metal is bright and glistens when the sun shines on them. I guess they’re supposed to keep birds from landing on the ledge and pooping down on the building or people or something. I don’t know, that’s what somebody told me anyway. I just couldn’t stand walking underneath those nails twice a week. It was like entering a house of death or something.” I stopped talking. I didn’t tell them about the time that I did go to class and the teacher told us about her friend in Vietnam who was talking to one of his buddy’s in the trenches and he turned away for a second and when he turned back around his friend’s head had blown up. How the guy tried to piece his friend’s head back together again. And how I ran out of class, the nails mocking my horror. I didn’t talk about these things. The nails were enough. They were too much, in fact.

“Is that all?” Joshua asked.

Is that all? I couldn’t believe my ears. The single most horrifying thing in my life and he asks is that all? In a hollow and empty rage I turned to my iced tea. The little girl in the yellow dress was trying to climb up the side of the almost empty glass to get out, but fell back down. Her hand was wrapped around a small metal nail.

“Yes,” I stood up. “And now I have to go do some work. It was nice meeting you,” I nodded to Joshua, then to my mom. “I’ll be talking to you soon.” I turned away and took each slow step over to the door. One foot followed the other, the walls were pink and had a pastel border and the tables had too little room between them. The door wasn’t pink, it was white, and wooden with a knob that you turn like for a house, so I turned the knob and pushed it open. The fresh air hit me, bringing with it all the exquisite scents and sounds and feelings and memories of walking outdoors on a springtime evening and as I took a deep breathe I stepped out into it all, closing the door tightly behind me. I walked away.