AM/PM Read online

“Indeed,” Charles said, from the darkness. Terrence judged him to be about five feet away, but when he reached his arm out, he touched Charles’s knee, which startled them both. The knee was cold and hairy. Charles’s knee made Terrence more nervous than the existence of the small box.

  He leaned back and startled again when he touched the soft walls of the box. The thick velvet felt deep enough to sink his fingers into, but he didn’t want to know what was down there and instead let his hand rest on the surface.

  Terrence considered the letter he would write to his girlfriend when he was free. He thought fondly of the time they ate cotton candy until she vomited.

  18:PM

  Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that nobody can go so far as to say “good morning” in public without being liquored up. If ever we do accidentally function as human beings, we call it instinct, as in, “sorry about the coffee, or your dress, or my last marriage, but I was operating on instinct,” as if it’s a failure to behave the way we’re all designed. Everyone forgets that acting on instinct has gotten many soldiers through many wars and the rest of us through long lives. The realization caused Tess to paint the dead ladybug on her bedside table with gold frost nail polish, which, as she predicted, did make it look prettier.

  Social code was created for the thrill of dragging one’s fingertips across the inner thigh of another man’s wife. It has been enforced for centuries so that the room will go quiet when the boss is advised to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. The thrill of acting on instinct should never require an apology. An apology would be an act of belittlement; receiving it, an act of humiliation.

  The ladybug is not dead: Good-bye, golden friend.

  AM:19

  By then, the cats were used to the sound of construction next door. Carla hoped it would make the move easier for them, though she anticipated the startled cat noises, the wide eyes and that low groan like the sound a machine makes. This didn’t help the prospect of the big move, of course. There were boxes that needed to be opened and checked for contents, and still more boxes that had to be created and filled with the last of it, including perishables, spillables, and the last of the glassware. Packing glassware in secret sounds more stressful than it is. With the newspaper softened by the humid air, it would be easy to wrap and pack her wine glasses without waking Andrew at all.

  20:PM

  The man who owned the furniture store was really glaring at Martha and Emily by then. They had been testing the stability of his coffee tables by piling on top of them, first Martha on her back and then Emily on her front. The owner thought it was pretty funny at first, but when they kept going and he determined there was no candid camera to catch his reaction, he started pacing back and forth in his glass-walled office.

  Emily took Martha’s hand and led her over to a three-legged table with a glass top.

  “Fall back on it,” she said.

  “I’m not falling back on it.”

  “Come on.”

  “There’s no way, under any circumstance, that I would fall back on a glass table.”

  “Heat of the moment.”

  “No way. I’d have to be on drugs.”

  “So you’re on drugs,” Emily said. “So we decide to relive our college days, and you’re on drugs, now fall back.”

  The owner picked up his phone. In the reflection of the glass, Martha could see the two of them, together. They were reliving their college days, and she was on drugs, and it wasn’t even going to hurt.

  AM:21

  Andrew’s problem with women was that he was analytical and they were always, always emotional. Women made fun of him for measuring out salt and spices when he cooked. Even the ones who never cooked would criticize him, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen as if they knew they shouldn’t trespass but teasing him anyway. At the movies they smacked him with popcorn buckets for commenting on an incongruous detail while they were building up the stamina to cry. None of it made sense to Andrew. He was very loving, and concerned, and simply knew where to place sadness and fear and anger, so that it could be accessed with great efficiency when necessary.

  “It’s just you and me, house,” Andrew said.

  The house was not so sure.

  22:PM

  With practice, Hazel learned to paint rooms. The evidence could be found in the botched green walls of the room she left and would always remember, even when the house is sold and the room is repainted.

  Understand that if you don’t paint a room properly, you will know those pieces of wall forever. Understand that every piece of paint not properly applied continues to quietly exist. The misapplied strokes hold a dull truth that remains despite new coats.

  AM:23

  After a night of terrible sleep, Tess awoke to the realization that cows become meat, though they eat none, and the same goes for vegetarians.

  She drank her coffee with extra cream and no sugar. The black linen dress hanging on the wall of the coffee house aspired to belong to a little girl, size six.

  A man spoke into a cell phone. He said, Since I met you, baby, I’ve never been the same.

  Another man said to a child, Where are you going, you bug? Don’t make me squeeze your little paws, you bug.

  24:PM

  Unload your perishables and empty boxes. Give away old clothes and broken cookware. Crush the empty cans and load them with the yellow newspapers. Shred the sensitive documents. Discard fingernail clippings. Get rid of those photographs and letters. Offload the old enemies. A lighter life, at any price.

  AM:25

  When Martha was a girl, fire safety was something presented on public service commercials and school visits from volunteer firemen. They even brought a miniature house, perhaps half the size of the house she grew up in, with child-sized stairs and rooms.

  The children crawled into the house and the adults would start the sweet-smelling fog machine and pump it in through the windows and vents and say, Get down, get out, remember your training. Martha would obediently get down and get out, though she liked the way the smoke smelled.

  The adults said, You must have a plan, and Martha made a secret plan: in case of fire, she would fill up the bathtub, get in so she would save her pajamas from burning, and simply peek her nose above the water to smell that candy smoke.

  26:PM

  It was a warm Friday afternoon, and the rain hadn’t yet begun. Sam was throwing a rubber-band ball at Hazel’s forehead with repeated accuracy.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Hazel said. She closed her eyes when the rubber-band ball struck her forehead.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “You could not do that.”

  “Sorry,” he said, catching the ball and throwing it again in rhythm. “I won’t define myself by what I am not, and what I will not do.”

  She sighed. “You could throw it at the wall next to my forehead.” She kept her forehead still for him when she pointed.

  “No go, unfortunately,” he said, scooping up the ball. “I place too high a value on human interaction.”

  “You could throw it at somebody else for a few hours.”

  Sam looked wounded. He winged it hard enough to leave a red welt between her eyes.

  “I’d never do that to you,” he said. “I love you.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “At least we have that,” he said, aiming for the welt.

  AM:27

  After Carla left, Andrew discovered that their house had three secret hiding places. In the second bedroom, he found a small cubby in the upper right corner of the closet, enough room for a medium-sized box or a small child. Under the sink, loose planks covered a few inches of secret space.

  At the bottom of the stairs in the entry hall closet was the most exciting secret area. Close inspection revealed a panel that lifted up to expose the underpinnings and pipes of the house. He was shocked he hadn’t found the
secret earlier.

  The space had its own climate. In an emergency, Andrew could possibly fit in the area. This would be an emergency that required not exiting the house through the front door, five feet away. It would be an emergency requiring escape or concealment. The wood around the panel was original to the house, sixty or seventy years old. Andrew felt terribly safe.

  28:PM

  Charles decided to see if he could live without worldly possessions. He said that giving them up one at a time was the scientific way to do it, which made sense to Doreen because she had bought him a subscription to Nature the previous Christmas, and since then he had been fascinated by the scientific method. Doreen’s friends suggested that she give him time, then they suggested that she draw the line at items important to her. Her friends made no suggestions at all for one week, when Charles packed their cell phones into the garage. When he brought them out, her voicemail was full of messages saying This has to stop.

  That night, Doreen watched Charles dismantle the ceiling fan. “This has to stop,” she said.

  “You only concern yourself with larger things,” he said. “You didn’t notice the week I went without socks.”

  “I do your laundry. I notice everything.”

  “Speaking of, I have the clothes dryer on schedule for next week.”

  The base of the ceiling fan came down in one piece, and he wrapped the globes carefully with newspaper before unscrewing the blades. He lay them in a neat stack and arranged them all in a box.

  “The girls are talking about you again,” Doreen said.

  “Those women need to learn a thing or two about compromise,” Charles said.

  He took the ceiling fan away. Doreen looked at the bare wires dangling from the ceiling and wondered how a scientist might see them.

  AM:29

  Reginald closed down the furniture store on Mondays. He tried not to keep a set schedule on his day of rest, but he was an organized man by nature and did find satisfaction in loose guidelines. Before noon, he would ride his horse across his property. Sometimes he would find the cows, and sometimes he would ride the perimeter, checking the electrified fence. Around noon, Olivia would bring him a cold lunch on the porch. It was often a sandwich made from the leftovers from the previous night, chicken salad made from the dinner cutlets, or meatloaf soaked in ketchup. Olivia gave old meat new life between bread.

  To appease her in the evenings, Reginald would fix something small around the house. To show her that he was still vital, he would change the dead bulbs in the foyer chandelier or put new hinges on the driveway gate. At night, he bathed in a bathtub she filled with gallons upon gallons of mineral oil.

  30:PM

  Olivia dreams that her body becomes pliable enough that she can stretch very thin and cover most of the rooms of the house. Her body is so thin that the bones are clearly visible, and the veins stretch, and the blood has more distance to travel and as a result, the edges of her body are very cold. Reginald opens the front door, removes his shoes, and takes only one step before recoiling in horror at the chilly mass that is Olivia’s body, stretched and waiting. In her dreams, she controls every aspect of her life.

  AM:31

  They are conduits of emotion, kids are. They’re parrots who wear little shoes. The only difference is, when you see a parrot, you never say, gosh, that parrot says the darndest things. You might look at the parrot and say Polly? Polly? even when the owner says very clearly to you that the parrot’s name is not Polly. You might say to the parrot, Polly want a cracker? Polly? Why are you wearing little shoes?

  32:PM

  They were in love! At night, Carla would read a book and soak her feet in the kitchen sink. Leonard found it charming, and would sometimes kiss her feet when she came to bed. Sometimes there was still soap between her toes, and he cherished the soap and cherished the toes. She would laugh and kick at him playfully and call it a feast of love. If he had nightmares she would praise his fantastic imagination until he slept again and dreamed that he won a highly respected award. He made crepes for lunch, and they would spread butter or chocolate or pesto sauce inside and discuss if savory or sweet was superior. Their discussions often ended with a cavalcade of laughing shoves, and then he’d return again to the feet, kissing the soft pads of her toes while she squealed.

  Eventually something wasn’t right, and the two moved on, and Carla told her new boyfriends that she’d always thought the foot thing was creepy.

  AM:33

  E,

  Baby, you give me hives. You’re lucky. I happen to think it’s an essential function of any relationship that one party be covered in hives at all times. Even in business relationships. Secret hives. You know what I’m talking about.

  —M.

  34:PM

  Just because you made it warm doesn’t make it yours: A lesson for felines.

  Feline Posits: What if one makes it warm for a long time?

  A Response: I will still put it on the towel rack, because it is still a towel.

  Feline Posits: What if one conveys pride of ownership via claws?

  A Response: Nothing is truly owned, supporting nothing is truly yours.

  Feline Posits: What of one’s blood, in one’s body?

  A Response: Blood does not own the body, and body does not own the blood, so says the Rite of Communion.

  Feline Posits: What is to become of us, then, and our loneliness?

  A Response: Be blessed with the temporary nature of the towel, and of your body.

  AM:35

  Doreen sat naked at the table, uploading her photographs. “I have complete control of my cropping area!” she said.

  Charles closed the science magazine he had been reading at the breakfast nook. “That’s comforting,” he said, taking up his tea.

  Her black hair was so long by now, it coiled around the base of her chair. She was too lazy to put it up, or had misplaced all of her rubber bands, and it spread out so thick behind her that it looked like she’d grown from it, instead of the other way around.

  He watched the hair like it was his wife, and his wife like she was an adornment of her hair, a barrette or peach-colored band. “Would you like a glass of water?” he asked.

  “That’s strange.”

  “Water is strange?”

  Doreen’s hair was bright and soft. She hadn’t showered, and the oils gave it a healthy luster. “Once you’re married for ten years,” she said, “you should start forgetting to ask if I want water.” Charles was mesmerized by the way it fell over her shoulders, which were not beautiful, or which were beautiful but not as beautiful as her hair.

  “We are among the lucky,” Charles said.

  36:PM

  And may the women hold their brave faces to the sun as the men become afflicted with a terrible pestilence, and may their flesh rain upon the heads of the chosen people. May their hair clog the sewers in the streets, and their broken bodies tumble into the sea! May their useless fury fail to stir the tapestries in the temple, and may the LORD find solace in their swift destruction!

  AM:37

  Leonard decided that the chaise longue was his favorite piece of furniture and that he would never leave it. We had to bring his soup upstairs, and even then he didn’t like to eat, because he was afraid he would drip on the chaise longue. We’d all sit around and talk a little, but none of the chairs in his house were as comfortable, and once Leonard claimed it, it felt strange to sit on it with him. We were closer than we meant to be, even if we were sitting on the far side of the chaise longue. After a while, it felt strange to be in the same room with the two of them.

  38:PM

  Sam came out of the bathroom glowering, like it was Hazel’s fault.

  “Feeling better?” Hazel said.

  “Coffee hurts when it comes back up.”

  “I’m sorry, dear.”

  He sat next to her on the couch, his hands balled into fists. He smacked his lips.

  “We should go to breakfast,” said Hazel.


  Sam looked at her.

  AM:39

  This massive PDF file is a symbol of my love for you. It is graphic and full of information. It takes time to fully load, and when it’s running I find it difficult to complete other work. There are parts that I would rather not read, parts I have to read, and parts I’ll never read or even know about, but they will always be there. I cannot change the content of this massive PDF file, and I cannot decide when it will begin or end. In fact, it is always there, on my desktop. Even if I put it in my Recycle Bin, it is there, and even if I empty the Recycle Bin it is still there somewhere. I would have to powder the hard drive to be rid of all traces of this massive PDF file, which is a symbol of my love for you.

  40:PM

  Tess felt rather certain that she would die alone. She blamed her arms, which she found to be fatter than normal arms. She blamed her poor body image, which she couldn’t seem to shake, even as she got older and found that the girls around her had turned into women, had gotten pregnant and lost their shapes entirely. She took too many pictures of herself and scrutinized them for flaws, and then made copies of the prints and taped them on telephone poles across town with her phone number printed clearly across them.

  People called from all over, mostly men, asking about the girl in the photograph. Tess told them, That girl is a runaway, and if you find her, try to keep her in one place and secretly phone the police.

  The men said, She looks a little old for a runaway.

  Tess said, She’s disturbed.