Hex - Rebecca Dinerstein Knight Page 0,49
the way you might look at a telemarketer you could see.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. Tom and Joan are having a go of it in the library and Mishti is having a good cry and you’re down here with,” I squinted at the doorman’s name badge, “Charles. I thought you might want a piece of the action.”
“A go of it?” said Barry. I wondered how many years on earth you could complete by only repeating the last thing someone else said to you. Barry had completed forty-five.
I walked back through the parallel leather couches and rang the elevator bell. Barry whispered something disparaging to Charles and then jogged over to the elevator door as it was opening. We rode the first nine floors in silence. Between the ninth and tenth floors Barry asked me, “Do you think she knows about Mishti?” I didn’t answer. “She must,” he said. “Christ, she must have known all along.” A blissful, luminous fear poured through me, as if fear were the cousin of justice.
TIME
“Joan,” said Barry.
“Barry,” said Tom.
“I’m sorry,” Barry said, taking a left turn. “Joan from my heart I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” said Mishti, clean-faced.
“I’m sorry,” Barry said to Mishti as well.
“I’m not,” you said to everyone.
Tom said nothing.
“Babe,” said Carlo. Nobody knew where he’d come from.
“I don’t want to go to Bermuda,” said Mishti.
“February,” said Carlo.
“Not ever,” said Mishti.
“Do you mean—” said Carlo.
“I mean,” said Mishti.
“It’ll never happen again,” said Barry.
“You can have whatever you like,” you told him.
“I want you,” said Barry.
“I want him,” you said.
Tom said nothing.
I looked at you and the difference between age forty and thirty and fifteen felt very small. We all stood awaiting the day we’d grow up and leave home.
LOVE
In your office a week later your braid was back. You looked at me and said, “Why did you fetch Barry, you idiot dog.”
“Why did you flaunt Tom?”
“When beauty asks you a question, how often do you reply?”
“Joan,” I said, “Joan,” I had conquered you forever and now you’d have to die of shame, “Joan,” I said, moaning the o, “are you quoting Ani DiFranco at me?”
You took a seat, humbly, in complete defeat.
“Yeah,” you said. I’d never heard you say Yeah before. You smiled. You said, “I thought she was before your time.”
“We’re the same,” I said, and added, for good measure, “I need you.”
“How do you need me, Nell.”
“As a parent.”
“I chose not to have children.”
“As a teacher.”
“Expelled.”
“As a friend.”
“You have several.”
“As an institution.”
“Enroll anywhere else.”
“As validation.”
“I have validated you.”
“As approval.”
“I don’t approve.”
“As the only person beside myself I can bear.”
“You can bear yourself?”
“Now I can’t.”
“Good, go home.”
I started to cry, which I hadn’t done since Tom’s string beans and before that not for four years.
You grimaced at my feelings and said, “I’m tired of you and all your little friends pawing at me as if I can bless you, I can’t bless you, leave me the motherfuck alone.”
“Leave Barry,” I said.
“I did,” you said.
I grabbed the armrests of your chair and kissed you. The chair squeaked. I held the roller wheel in place with one foot. You leaned back and rested your head on the wall.
“I don’t love you,” you said.
I let go of the armrests and the wheel. I must have looked frazzled. You said, to be clearer, “I am not in love with you, Nell Barber,” and it was the kindest and most legitimizing thing you could say, as if you could have loved me, as if you only happened not to, as if you only didn’t, not couldn’t, not wouldn’t dare.
“We’ve come to the end of this now,” you said, your eyelids hanging so low on your coldest eyes you might have been half asleep. “I’ll send you the assistant money and registration when it comes through this week. Test your monkshood. Leave me out of it. You’re fine, Nell. I’m fine. We’re the same. As you’ve said: get a goddamn grip.”
MEMO
From:
NSF Aid Committee
Office of the Chairman
To:
Professor Joan Kallas
Columbia University
Your applicant for the assistant position has been rejected, as it has been brought to our attention that she is ineligible. Assistants must be currently enrolled doctoral candidates working toward a terminal degree in your project’s most closely aligned field. Please resubmit an enrolled and qualified candidate by January 15 for reconsideration. Thank you.
Nell—
I should have expected this, I didn’t think
they had the most updated registrar logs.
I’m sorry. There’s nothing else I can do for
you and I’d rather we stop speaking.
You understand.
My best, J
MARCH
I empty myself of my life and my life