We spread, p.7
We Spread, page 7
As she’s talking, she picks up a blow-dryer, turns it on, and starts drying my hair, brushing it out.
Why didn’t Jack finish doing my hair? Why did he leave me? Why did they switch? She never even said where he went. I feel a pit open in my stomach.
“How did you end up here? Doing this work?” I ask.
“My grandparents owned this house. My parents inherited it from them, and they used it as a summer house. I loved coming here as a child. It felt like a mansion out of a movie. I had so much fun here during those long summers, but I was always alone, and I would imagine what it would be like to have friends here with me….”
She trails off, and I feel myself shiver.
“The days and years go by so fast,” she says. “I wish there was a way to slow everything down, don’t you? To have more time. Time is the most important thing.”
She sets the blow-dryer down and picks up a comb and a pair of scissors.
My eyes wander to the mirror. Beside it are two plastic bins. One appears empty, the other has hair clippings in it.
“I guess everyone would like more time,” I say. “I might have given a different answer before I got here. But more time would be good now.”
I think about what more time would actually mean. For me, Pete, Ruth, Hilbert. More sitting around. More eating. More sleeping. I would get to paint more. But what would the work mean if it was endless? What would a relationship mean if it kept going forever? What would a day be if it didn’t end?
More and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more.
It’s what everyone wants, so she says.
“What if time was all you had?” I say. “Maybe if we had all the time in the world, life would start to feel meaningless. Or worse.”
The scissors she’s using to cut my hair aren’t new. They make a hard swish sound each time they snip.
“No, Penny,” she says. “You’re wrong about that. Don’t say that again, please.”
I look down at my lap.
“More time can only be good,” she goes on. “It’s our duty to form connections and make strong links while we can. There is nothing wrong with dependence and asking for help. There is strength in fitting in, in sacrificing your identity as an individual, in becoming part of something bigger than just yourself.”
My hair falls off and down to the floor at her feet. She’s trimming it, cutting it in a simple, plain bob style.
She never asked me how I wanted it cut. She never asked.
“When I was young, I loved getting my hair cut,” she says. “I loved knowing that it would grow back. No matter what. We should always have elegant, well-maintained hair. It’s part of who we are.”
I watch her in the mirror. She pauses, steps back, looks down at my hair, the scissors at her side.
“I’m glad you’ve enjoyed talking with Hilbert,” she says to me in the mirror.
I feel myself blush.
“He’s a sweetheart, isn’t he? He’s brilliant, you know. Still works on his equations every day. We encourage all of you to have something to focus on, to make use of your time here. It’s a special group we have.”
Shelley makes eye contact again, through the mirror, then continues cutting.
I never wanted to only have one serious boyfriend. I always said yes to dates. I loved meeting new boys. Even if we just went out once or twice. I’d always give them a chance. All my friends seemed ready for marriage and kids right away. Not me.
And then I met someone. I met him at one of his openings. He was outgoing and articulate. I could tell he felt something for me, and I liked how confident he seemed. Within two months, we’d decided to move in together.
I didn’t know then that I would spend the rest of my adult life with him. Until coming here.
I have a hard time remembering more than that. We did fall in love. We did have fun, for a while. It’s so strange. All that time together and I’m left with only a vague feeling about facts and details.
“Hilbert is easy to talk with,” I say. “He waits to be asked questions before he gives his thoughts. He wants to ask me about mine. I think he and I are very different. I don’t understand the world the way he does, and I really like that. Too often I’ve only been around other artists. I trust him.”
“It sounds to me like you might have a little crush, Penny,” Shelley says.
“I’m too old for any of that now.”
She starts using a soft brush to remove any stray hairs around my face and neck.
“Give me your hand, please,” she says.
I hold my hand up. Shelley takes it and starts to give me a hand massage, rubbing her gloved thumbs over my palm. It’s firm but not unpleasant.
“Human touch is so important. You’ve gone so long without.”
She’s right. I have. Years. Even when he was still alive, the touch I felt and the touch I gave were mostly cold and brisk. I let my eyes slip shut again. I feel her hold my thumb and then the click of a nail clipper. She’s cutting my nails. She’s taking her time, doing it meticulously.
“Your nails are like your hair, healthy and strong. We could paint them if you want. Maybe pink? Something fun for the party.”
She starts cutting the nails of my left hand. She’s cutting the nails quite short.
“I don’t paint my nails.”
“That’s okay.”
She cuts another nail, the clippers snapping.
“I never understood the point.”
“No problem.”
“I bite them.”
“You bite your nails?”
“Yes, I always have.”
She cuts another nail.
“If you paint them, you just have to do it again when it wears off.”
“Whatever you like, my dear.”
As she says this, she trims a nail too short, and it stings. I pull my hand away.
“Oh no! I’m sorry. That hurts, doesn’t it?”
Shelley takes a step back as I examine my finger. It starts to bleed, just a bit. She takes a hold of the finger and squeezes it, holding it tightly. She dabs it with the end of a Q-tip, which she then drops into the small bin. It’s right beside the bin that has the hair clippings in it. It all happens in a blink, and I’m not sure what I’ve just seen.
“At least we know you have good, healthy-looking blood.”
I pull my finger back, bringing it up to my mouth. I suck the sore spot, looking at her. The shade of her lipstick is red. Bright red. Brighter than it has been, I think. Did she just put it on?
I feel a drip of sweat fall from my armpit, trickle down my side.
Can one person’s blood be more healthy-looking than another’s?
With my freshly washed cut hair and trimmed nails, I’m standing at my desk. Shelley brought me back to my room and said I could start working again.
“Your hair looks great,” she said as she left. “Good luck.”
I bring a hand up to my forehead. Not to touch my hair but to feel the scab from my fall. I haven’t thought about it today, and I can feel with my finger that the scab has dried. It’s healing. I’m healing. I can still heal, I guess, even at this stage of life.
It’s strange how sleeping so well has affected my perception. I have no sense anymore of what a night is. I used to lay awake for so long in the dark that a night would take forever. Now I close my eyes and a moment later I open them to morning.
I also haven’t had any dreams since I’ve been here. Not that I can remember. Just deep, restful, dreamless sleeps.
I refocus on the canvas on my desk. It’s liberating to be working again. I feel younger. I have my head down, bent over the desk, when I get the uncomfortable sense of being watched. I stop, put down my brush, and look around my room.
I look behind me, toward my open door. A light in the hallway turns on, as if someone is there. I wait to see if they walk by. No one does. I wait. The cat walks in, rubbing up against my leg. I lean down and rub behind its ears.
He’s a cute, wee thing. I can feel his little ribs. He’s bordering on gaunt. But he likes when I rub his ears like this. When he scurries out, I look down at the painting, then back up to see Jack standing at my door.
“It’s so good to see you working on a new piece,” he says, walking in without knocking. “I have something for you. A noise-canceling device, like headphones, that you just slip over your ears. They block out all the background sounds that you’ve been hearing.”
Have I been hearing background sounds? I don’t remember saying anything to Jack about hearing sounds. Or to anyone else.
“Like what kinds of sounds?”
“All the old house stuff. Pipes, floorboards—the wood shifts on cold nights. I’ll show you how they work. They’ll help you concentrate and focus.”
He puts the headphones on over my ears and turns them on.
Silence. Not just quiet. It’s complete and utter silence.
I’ve never experienced this before, other than being underwater. Jack starts talking. I see his mouth moving, but I can’t hear anything.
He starts moving around the room, tapping the wall, but I don’t hear any of it. I’m under the ocean. Or in a dream. It’s peaceful, as if I’m hovering in space, but the removal of all sound is also strangely unnerving; to know there’s still communication out there directed at me but I’m not able to understand it. To know someone is walking down the hall, but not to hear it. No voices, no steps. No doors opening or closing. No wind through the branches of the trees that I used to love hearing in the park.
I’m not sure if I like it or hate it.
He takes the headphones off me.
“Amazing, right? Everyone else here already has a pair. They love them.”
“I think I’d prefer if I could hear music. I used to listen to music all the time.”
“These are meant more for cutting out distractions. Ruth uses hers when she’s working.”
“Working?”
“She translates different texts into English. Mostly from French. She does it for hours at a time.”
“Is there any way you could get some music for them? Please.”
“I can try, Penny.”
Jack walks over to the bed and starts stripping off the sheets.
As I watch him remove the cases from both pillows, it happens again, the way it did when I was getting my hair washed. A memory from childhood returns. Out of the blue. I’m surprised I remember it.
“Whenever my dad would change the sheets of my bed, which probably wasn’t all that often, but whenever he did, we had this little game,” I say. “I don’t know how it started. He would have all the dirty sheets stripped off the bed, lying on the floor in a messy ball, and I would get down under them. I would say to him that there’s a delivery for him. And he would then get down and start feeling around with his hands, saying, ‘I wonder what it could be,’ and I would be trying so hard to hold in my laughter. And then he would finally rip the sheets away and say, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ It was pure joy. Seeing his smiling face. His eyes focused on me. We did it over and over, and the feeling never changed. It was so simple.”
Jack walks by with the sheets that he’s removed, and without saying anything, he puts one of them over my head playfully.
“What’s this weird package?” he says, laughing. “Eh, Penny, what do we have here?”
I’m giggling, too, but then I stop. I stick my head out. I wonder why he’s changing the sheets. I’ve only slept in them twice. “You’re washing the sheets?” I ask.
“What?”
“My sheets. Do you think they need to be changed already?”
“We like to keep them clean,” he says. “Ruth hates dirty sheets.”
He takes one backward step, still looking at me, then, arms full of sheets, he turns and walks out of the room.
The four of us eat in silence. We’re savoring yet eating ferociously. A full table again.
I must have worked up such an appetite from painting all afternoon. I was famished by the time our plates were brought out. Famished, and still thinking about Jack’s last comment to me.
Why would he tell me that Ruth hates dirty sheets? What does that have to do with me?
Meat and rice in a sweet, sticky sauce. We have warm bread with extra butter on the side. All through the meal, I can’t stop peering over at Ruth.
Ruth hates dirty sheets.
Ruth, the language expert. The translator. Jack said she translates for hours at a time. Whenever I’ve seen her she’s been talkative, outgoing, laughing. But tonight she is focused on her meal, like the rest of us.
I try not to make it obvious, but I keep peeking toward her. How she’s sitting. The way her short hair is styled. Her smooth complexion. How she holds her fork and the way her lips curl up when she grins. She’s so pretty, almost youthful. She looks much younger than me. I wonder how old she is.
When our plates have been cleared, and Jack’s back in the kitchen, it’s Ruth who reaches over and touches my leg under the table.
“Do you want to go somewhere and talk?” she asks, as if she knows I’d been thinking about her.
“Okay,” I say.
Ruth leads us to the chairs in the hallway seating cove. She waits for me to sit before she does, too.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
Ruth laughs as if it’s a silly question.
“Hard to say. Old Pete was the first of us. Then Hilbert. Then you. Now us.”
“Us?”
“Here, us. We’re all here. We’re home now. Finally. For good.”
“For good?”
Ruth puts a hand over her mouth as to muffle a laugh and then quickly stands up. She starts walking away. She turns back and motions for me to follow, still chuckling. I get up and follow a few steps behind, watching how her hips sway. When I catch up, she surprises me by taking my arm in hers.
It’s like when I used to go dancing with my friend. This is how we’d walk from dance club to dance club. Moving this way, together, I can feel the ease of her steps, me following her lead. She’s not as stiff as me.
“Do you find it loud here?” I ask. “Do you hear things?”
“We have the space and time to work,” she says. “We’re lucky.”
She’s trying to synchronize our steps as we walk, until our strides are even and we’ve ended up at the spa room where I had my hair washed. The door is open, but no one is in there. Ruth stops us.
“On the first day, Shelley washes hair.”
“Yes,” I say. “Did she cut your nails?”
She grins, winks, and directs us in.
Ruth motions for me to sit down in the spa chair.
“Should we be in here?” I ask.
“Pourquoi pas?” She picks up a bottle of nail polish. “For the party,” she says.
She’s really giggling now as she moves around in front of me.
“Were you ever married, Ruth?”
Ruth has to think about it. “Not yet, but hopefully one day.”
“And you don’t have any children or family left?”
“Children will come after marriage.”
“I don’t think any of us have family left. There’s no one to check in on us or ask about us. Or visit. Does anyone get any visitors?”
“We’re together. We have everything we need right here. Don’t you remember painting our nails and putting on makeup when we were young?” she says, holding up her hand to show me her nails. All her nails are painted red like Shelley’s. Looking closer, I see that the side of one of Ruth’s nails has been cut too short, like my own.
All of a sudden, I can’t hear her anymore. I can’t hear her words. I can’t hear her voice.
Ruth speaks, her mouth moves, but I can’t hear any sounds. I bring my hand up to my ear.
Her mouth opens in a laugh, small at first, then wider, but I don’t hear it. What’s wrong with me? I watch Ruth’s mouth opening and closing as my panic grows and swells. My heart beats faster, heavier.
And then, as quickly as it happened, I hear her again.
“What? What’s wrong?” Ruth asks. “You look pale.”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “It’s… I like the color of your nails. Red suits you.”
I slowly get up from the chair to stand beside Ruth. We are shoulder to shoulder looking in the mirror.
“This feels good, doesn’t it?” she says.
“What?”
My new haircut is so much like hers. I hadn’t noticed it until I see us together like this, side by side. I look at my own face, closely, carefully, in a way I haven’t looked at myself in many years. I didn’t like the old face looking back at me, so at some point, I just stopped looking at it.
But I can see it now. My skin looks better.
It’s subtle. Maybe it’s because I’m sleeping so well. And eating. We stand, staring at ourselves and each other, until Ruth speaks.
“Do you think he likes us?”
Our feet are so close the sides are touching. She interlocks our arms again.
“Who?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes.
“Hilbert,” she says.
“Do you like him?” I ask.
“He’s handsome. Definitely smart. Tall, and dresses well. A bit dull, though.”
“He’s smart in a different way,” I say. “Which I like.”
“There are worse things than dull.”
“You’re right about that,” I say.
“Like someone who needs to always be reassured all the time, someone who is inward-looking,” she says.
“Yes!” I say. “That’s right. That’s hard to live with for so long.”
“It is,” she says. “It’s exhausting.”
“Because,” I say, “it gets worse over time, not better. When you’re so similar to a partner, there’s that risk of it feeling more like cooperation than true appreciation. There needs to be that unending, renewing affection. When the superficial wore off, I didn’t feel any wonderment, you know?”
“Yes, we know,” she says.
“I stopped being astonished by him. There was no complexity there, only ego.”
