Cream of the Crop
Page 50
Background noise like prom, which I could have finally gone to because, hello, boyfriend! But, hello, college guy, and why the hell would he go to some stupid high school prom with other stupid uppity rich kids?
Background noise like college essays, because even though I’d been preaccepted, I still had to go through the formality of being actually accepted into the schools I’d been dreaming of attending since I was in junior high and beginning to plan out my life carefully and methodically.
Background noise like my high school paper, of which I’d been the editor, but now was lucky to get an article in every other month
. . . like my brother’s birthday
. . . like my parents’ anniversary
. . . like my graduation.
I missed my high school graduation, spending it naked on a mattress on my hands and knees, getting fucked in the ass by someone who told me I would absolutely love it, and if I didn’t, then there must be more wrong with me than he originally thought, and that it was only because he loved me so much that he hadn’t dumped me weeks ago.
If someone had told me that I would have moved out of my parents’ home to go and live in a fourth-floor walk-up in the Bronx with my boyfriend, to say fuck off to my mother when she told me this was a terrible mistake, and tell my father he was an asshole when he told me college was off the table if I did this, I’d have said they were nuts.
And yet that September, when everyone I’d known since elementary school was off at Brown and Wellesley, I was standing in front of a two-burner stove, trying like hell not to burn toast because I’d never hear the end of it, wearing nothing but a plaid skirt and bra because that’s how he liked me best, and wondering how much it would cost to get a new air-conditioning unit for this piece-of-crap apartment, because ours had died last night and it was stifling hot.
I’d never spent August in the city. We had a house in Bridgehampton, natch. I’m not trying to play poor little rich girl, but the city was murder in the heat. And the excitement of walking away from my life to play house with Thomas was beginning to wear a little thin.
What wasn’t thin was my body, something that was the center of almost every conversation I had with him. Where he used to tell me how much he loved my curves, he now told me how flabby I’d gotten, and how much everything jiggled when he was pounding into me. Which was almost every night, and every day, pounding and thrusting and thrashing and hair pulling and get up on top like this and arch your back like that and why the hell can’t you figure this out for God’s sake why do I have to do everything?
I’d been picked on, but I’d never been picked apart like this. Not by someone with love in their words, but not in their heart. I was beginning to see some cracks in his charm, in his words, in the promise of what it would be like, could be like, when it was just the two of us against the world.
Any hope he might have had of working for my father someday was gone the second my grades went in the toilet. And any hope he might have had of building great things, huge things, in the city where my father knew literally everyone at every architectural firm, every construction company, every everything that had to do with building in this incredible city of architectural beauty, was gone the second I missed my father’s fiftieth birthday party to bring my boyfriend chicken soup because he was feeling under the weather, and I thought that was more important than anything.
And with his world beginning to crumble when his thesis fell apart and his advisor told him he was way off base and in danger of not getting his master’s, my world was going to shit right along with it.
The veiled hints that I might stand to drop a few pounds here and there had become aggressively rude and crude, with handfuls of fat grabbed during angry sex. Red fingerprints on white skin that folded and crumpled when forced to sit naked, hunched over in order to see just how many rolls there were.
Do I really think that when he saw me across the street, those many months ago, that this was his plan? Maybe not. Regardless, he very likely already knew what he’d be able to get away with, considering who I was back then.
When I saw my mother for the first time since I’d moved out, she burst into tears. I couldn’t cry, and not just because I was emotionally shut down, but because I literally didn’t have enough water in my body to do so. I’d lost sixty pounds in four months, and was so exhausted I could barely meet her eyes.
I’d gone shopping downtown, taking the subway when Thomas was teaching his undergraduate class one afternoon and I actually had some time to myself. He was home so much more than he used to be, not making all of his lectures for some time now, staying in, with me. For the first time in a long while, I was alone, out and about, actually feeling myself relaxing for a change—coupled with exhaustion. And then she saw me, and I could see on her face just how bad I looked.
If you lose that amount of weight in that short a time, there’s a slackness to the skin, a person within a person, almost. But factor in the stress, the lack of laughter, my poor health and well-being, and I knew I didn’t look myself.
I let her take me home. I let her wash my face. I let her talk on and on about how much she missed me, how much she worried about me, how many times she’d tried to call me but Thomas told her I was busy. But when she tried to make me a sandwich and put some cookies on a tray, I left.
And went back to the Bronx, where Thomas was waiting for me, wondering why in the world I’d been gone so long, and shouldn’t I have put on some lipstick if I was going out?
But something happened that day—even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Just being in my home, with my mother, had opened the tiniest sliver of a door. She’d wept when she saw me, and she’d wept when I’d left, but she was so grateful to have seen my face, even though it was too thin and sad-looking. She was happy to see my face.
Background noise like college essays, because even though I’d been preaccepted, I still had to go through the formality of being actually accepted into the schools I’d been dreaming of attending since I was in junior high and beginning to plan out my life carefully and methodically.
Background noise like my high school paper, of which I’d been the editor, but now was lucky to get an article in every other month
. . . like my brother’s birthday
. . . like my parents’ anniversary
. . . like my graduation.
I missed my high school graduation, spending it naked on a mattress on my hands and knees, getting fucked in the ass by someone who told me I would absolutely love it, and if I didn’t, then there must be more wrong with me than he originally thought, and that it was only because he loved me so much that he hadn’t dumped me weeks ago.
If someone had told me that I would have moved out of my parents’ home to go and live in a fourth-floor walk-up in the Bronx with my boyfriend, to say fuck off to my mother when she told me this was a terrible mistake, and tell my father he was an asshole when he told me college was off the table if I did this, I’d have said they were nuts.
And yet that September, when everyone I’d known since elementary school was off at Brown and Wellesley, I was standing in front of a two-burner stove, trying like hell not to burn toast because I’d never hear the end of it, wearing nothing but a plaid skirt and bra because that’s how he liked me best, and wondering how much it would cost to get a new air-conditioning unit for this piece-of-crap apartment, because ours had died last night and it was stifling hot.
I’d never spent August in the city. We had a house in Bridgehampton, natch. I’m not trying to play poor little rich girl, but the city was murder in the heat. And the excitement of walking away from my life to play house with Thomas was beginning to wear a little thin.
What wasn’t thin was my body, something that was the center of almost every conversation I had with him. Where he used to tell me how much he loved my curves, he now told me how flabby I’d gotten, and how much everything jiggled when he was pounding into me. Which was almost every night, and every day, pounding and thrusting and thrashing and hair pulling and get up on top like this and arch your back like that and why the hell can’t you figure this out for God’s sake why do I have to do everything?
I’d been picked on, but I’d never been picked apart like this. Not by someone with love in their words, but not in their heart. I was beginning to see some cracks in his charm, in his words, in the promise of what it would be like, could be like, when it was just the two of us against the world.
Any hope he might have had of working for my father someday was gone the second my grades went in the toilet. And any hope he might have had of building great things, huge things, in the city where my father knew literally everyone at every architectural firm, every construction company, every everything that had to do with building in this incredible city of architectural beauty, was gone the second I missed my father’s fiftieth birthday party to bring my boyfriend chicken soup because he was feeling under the weather, and I thought that was more important than anything.
And with his world beginning to crumble when his thesis fell apart and his advisor told him he was way off base and in danger of not getting his master’s, my world was going to shit right along with it.
The veiled hints that I might stand to drop a few pounds here and there had become aggressively rude and crude, with handfuls of fat grabbed during angry sex. Red fingerprints on white skin that folded and crumpled when forced to sit naked, hunched over in order to see just how many rolls there were.
Do I really think that when he saw me across the street, those many months ago, that this was his plan? Maybe not. Regardless, he very likely already knew what he’d be able to get away with, considering who I was back then.
When I saw my mother for the first time since I’d moved out, she burst into tears. I couldn’t cry, and not just because I was emotionally shut down, but because I literally didn’t have enough water in my body to do so. I’d lost sixty pounds in four months, and was so exhausted I could barely meet her eyes.
I’d gone shopping downtown, taking the subway when Thomas was teaching his undergraduate class one afternoon and I actually had some time to myself. He was home so much more than he used to be, not making all of his lectures for some time now, staying in, with me. For the first time in a long while, I was alone, out and about, actually feeling myself relaxing for a change—coupled with exhaustion. And then she saw me, and I could see on her face just how bad I looked.
If you lose that amount of weight in that short a time, there’s a slackness to the skin, a person within a person, almost. But factor in the stress, the lack of laughter, my poor health and well-being, and I knew I didn’t look myself.
I let her take me home. I let her wash my face. I let her talk on and on about how much she missed me, how much she worried about me, how many times she’d tried to call me but Thomas told her I was busy. But when she tried to make me a sandwich and put some cookies on a tray, I left.
And went back to the Bronx, where Thomas was waiting for me, wondering why in the world I’d been gone so long, and shouldn’t I have put on some lipstick if I was going out?
But something happened that day—even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Just being in my home, with my mother, had opened the tiniest sliver of a door. She’d wept when she saw me, and she’d wept when I’d left, but she was so grateful to have seen my face, even though it was too thin and sad-looking. She was happy to see my face.
