"Don't go wandering off now, if you go wandering off, I'll lose you. And the size of this place, you'll be lost for weeks."
She was right. I had never been inside somewhere so huge before. I didn't know this sort of space could exist inside. The expanse, so blindingly white, the aisles stretching out like highways. You couldn't see from one end to the other. To me it seemed there wasn't an end.
And I was obedient to begin with. I clutched the end of the cart for dear life, the cool metal reassuring to my tiny hot hand. Or I clung to her skirt, pawing at her knees as she examined one packet of cereal after another.
"So many goddamn choices," she muttered to herself, "Alex, stop clinging like that, I can't move. Which one shall we get?"
"The chocolate one!" I yelped enthusiastically. There was a funny cartoon man on the front. Plus, chocolate for breakfast sounded like the best invention ever.
She raised her eyebrows disapprovingly back at the box. "Hmm….eh, we'll get 'em both," she said, giving me a conspiratorial grin, like we shouldn't really be doing this. It made me giggle with glee.
But our expedition seemed endless, and, as children of a certain age inevitably do, I got bored with traipsing in my mother's wake. And once we reached the alcohol aisle her eyes lit up like a jukebox. Like all that had gone before was just the journey to Mecca and here we had arrived.
She was distracted, she wasn't really checking for me anymore and I fearlessly left the aisle's safety, I'd remember it, the one with rows and rows of green bottles. I went in search of the one with all the toys in it that I had spied several lifetimes back.
And even though I found it, and found that orange water pistol that I was just desperate, just absolutely had to have, when I bravely returned, she was not there. There was an old man, wearing a flat cap and carrying a basket, hunched down eyeing the whiskey bottles. But no dark haired women in the green floaty skirt. No mother waiting for me. My heart lurched and pounded violently, my head started throbbing and my mouth became salty with tears. She had forgotten me. She had left without me.
I rushed to the next aisle and peered along its expanse, so long that it seemed to fade into nothing at the other end. There were shopping carts and lists and women with perfect manicures, a baby sitting perched in the front of a cart, where I was too big to now fit. But she wasn't there.
A sob escaped me, I started to call her name. "Mom! Mommy!" Louder and louder, wandering down the aisle, the water pistol abandoned on the floor, a thousand heads turning to stare, flickers of relief, it wasn't their child, then sympathy at the poor little girl who'd gotten herself lost.
The sobs turned into huge, violent heaves. Floods of tears spilling shamelessly down my face. I couldn't believe that this had happened. That one minute I was having a glorious time and the next I'd be abandoned by my own mother. That I would never see her again. That very soon I would forget what she looked like. Had she already forgotten what I looked like? Would I have to sleep in the supermarket now? Would I have to live there?
Eventually, after what seemed like hours, an older woman, probably only middle aged, saw me and took pity on my distraught little form. "Come here honey, we'll find you're mommy." I wasn't supposed to go anywhere with strangers. I'd been taught that at school. I'd known that since I was four, a whole year ago. But she had a kind, smiley face, and she was a she, they never seemed so dangerous.
She took me to the checkout desk where a younger woman asked my name. They wanted my last name too, which hardly anyone ever wanted and they had difficulty getting it out of me between my hysterics. But then she did this clever thing. There was a microphone and she spoke into it and the sound went all over the supermarket.
It was amazing, I thought the whole world could probably hear. Even if my mother had gone home, she'd be bound to have heard it from there, or someone she knew would come and tell her.
And shortly after the announcement, she came wheeling the cart along, looking flustered and embarrassed. She apologized to the girl at the checkout and to the kind woman who'd found me. She thanked her and grabbed my hand proprietarily. She kept on saying she was sorry and how she'd told me not to wander off, taken her eyes off me for two seconds etc etc. No one seemed angry with her.
But she was angry with me. "I told you! Didn't I tell you?! Do you have ay idea what could happen? Alex, look at me!" she held my hand in a vice-like grip for the rest of the time, squeezing so hard that it hurt and went red, but I dared not make another noise. I didn't care really. The relief was too great; she could yell all she wanted. I had found her again. We had each other back. And when we got home she let me have a bowl of chocolate cereal and said she was sorry and to never run off again.
oooOOOooo
I'm lying on the bed, staring up at the artex swirls on the ceiling as I remember all this. Outside, summer has finally surrendered into fall, the chill creeping into the air, the sky darkening with every day. I can hear the rain beating against the window, cocooning me into the apartment with its ferocity.
Paige is on the phone to her family. I close my eyes as I try not to listen to her chirpy conversation. She's talking to her mother now.
"No, seriously Mom it's very good…yeah…no in terms of reputation definitely….and the course I'm on now…."
Blah, blah, she's going on about Baruch and her "new life". Reassuring her mother, no doubt, that she made the right decision. That jumping on a bus to follow her exgirlfriend to another country, abandoning her academic dreams of Banting in the process, that it had all been worth it.
"Yeah…she's fine…" her voice has dipped now as I suspect they are talking about me.
I sigh, momentarily lost in the thought that I should really phone my mother, been putting it off for ages…How quickly our hearts forget…how little it takes to break them over and over again….
The muffled talking has ceased. She's said her goodbyes now. I'm fleetingly hoping she won't come in here, but then the creak on the door as she does.
It's hard to find the words anymore, when we're all alone like this. We're too intimate for inane conversation, but too distant for anything deeper. It's all my fault. I know it is. I've been keeping her at arms length ever since, ever since…when was it? I can't even remember how this happened. What changed, what suddenly overtook me, made me realize, the bareness of everything, the futility, the emptiness, the pointlessness, the numbness, the dumbness, the superficiality, the absurdity, the rottenness, the decaying, the overwhelming, the underwhelming, the bizarre, the bland, the impossibility, the implausibility, the overcrowded, the solitary, the absolute and unending void of purposelessness that had reached out and filled me to breaking point. We came from nothing. We go into nothing. And what lay between was…was…
"Alex," she whispers my name, she snakes her arm around me, over my stomach, under the hem of my hoodie, warm fingers tickling cold skin. My eyes continue to trail over the swirling patterns on the ceiling, ignoring her touch, as it creeps further down, down the length of the zipper on my jeans, down beneath the waistband, down into the very core of me.
Her gaze is so intent I can feel her stare burning into the side of my head. Beseeching, challenging, craving acknowledgment, demanding entry. She swallows hard. I lick my lips.
"Do you remember…" she begins and I screw up my eyes and try to block out her voice. I don't remember. I don't want to remember.
"Do you remember, that day at your home…our first time together?" her voice quivers slightly, her hand dips lower. The combination of soft words, harsh actions makes me intake my breath suddenly.
"Yeah," my voice comes out in a rasp, hours since I've spoken.
"I was so scared that afternoon, y'know. I had been so…I mean, just the thought had terrified me," she's easing in, she's teasing me, quick and confident, her tone small and uncertain. "How did you feel about it? Before?"
I'm trying now, I have to try, "Horny as hell," I offer, finally turning my head in her direction, glancing down at her through dark lashes. "I'd always wanted you. I just, never really thought I'd get you…"
I have to look away again, because it's not working, the remembering, what had happened on that spring afternoon, what had happened later that night. They had come home, drunk, loud, arguing as usual.
"And now…?"
I glance down, her forearm contracting against my pelvis, her hand moving rhythmically, persistently.
"You've got me Alex. I'm right here."
The trouble is, I can't really feel anything. Not anymore. She continues for several minutes more, each minute the wound getting deeper, the movement getting more desperate. I've managed to unconsciously shut her out of ever part of me. I want to take her hand away. I want to yell at her to stop. I want to burst into tears. I want to scream at her, Don't you see? I'm not here anymore! I'm not here! And then to just float away, take my exit, quietly rise up from the bed, through the ceiling, dissolving into the air, into nothing. But I can't do any of these things.
I clench my eyes shut, cover them with my hand. She gets the message, she retracts her hand and quietly, with as much dignity as she can muster, slides off the bed. I peak through my fingers back at her. A look of horror, of disbelief, of disgust all vying for a place on her face. She leaves the room without another word. The creak of the door marking her departure.
oooOOOooo
I'm in the office, at my desk, crunching numbers mindlessly. The minutes ticking over and over. She'd phoned me up from campus, suggested we meet for lunch, she was coming over, we needed to talk about things, she said, I'll meet you outside, I said.
We needed to talk. About things. Things. We had never needed to talk before. It was just something that we did. Endlessly at first. Questions, jokes, quickfired back and forth. What's your middle name? Who was your first kiss? You own how many pairs of shoes? Inconsequential observations that you secretly remembered and took home to unwrap and examine. That's a great colour on you, worn whenever I wanted to get laid, I've really got to catch up on some studying, she has her period don't ask to stay over, everything comes alive in spring don't you think? Buy her some flowers, tell her she's beautiful.
She was beautiful. She is still beautiful. And now, we need to Talk about things.
I finish typing an email to our sales division manager, glancing down at the clock display. I'm a few minutes late. I lean down to pick up my bag when I hear my name being spoken, faint, in the distance. I turn to see Paige standing by the door with her back to me, talking to one of my co-workers no doubt.
"Can I help you?" she's asked.
"Hi, yes, er- I'm looking for Alex Nunẽz," she replies. She's wearing that long brown coat I bought for her the other weekend, when we were over at the Village. Apparently it's very boho chic. I don't really know what this means, but it seems to involve wearing lots of different kinds of layers and accessories.
"She's just this way," the woman replies. The woman, whose voice is clearer now, clear and surprisingly familiar, dear God, no…
There's an image I thought I'd never see, the one from my nightmares. June and Paige, side by side, walking towards me. But Paige is looking blissfully unaware, cheerful, removed, a student, a child, next to…. her. Poised, predatory, the spider of the web.
I rise in panic as they approach. Just get them away from each other, as quickly as possible. "I'm late, I know," I say immediately before Paige has a chance to speak.
"It was too cold to wait outside," she replies, then turning to June, "thanks."
She glances at me. June glances at me. No one's moving, this is the bit where I make introductions.
I try and usher Paige away with my hand hovering just above her elbow, no actual contact.
"Alex, before you go, sorry," she's interrupting, she's doing it on purpose, damn her! "I need the Merger figures done for this afternoon." She looks at me pointedly. Merger was a made-up name, a code we used to use.
"Okay," I say quickly, dismissively, eager to get away by any means possible. But then she's holding out her hand to Paige, in that professional, schmoozy way they all do, "Nice to meet you…"
"Paige," she says, shaking her hand.
"Paige," a tight smile forming, "June Steinborn." She turns on her heel, offering me a fleetingly victorious look before walking away.
Paige's mouth hangs slackly open, she looks at me sharply and I shift uncomfortably under her gaze.
We ride the elevator down in silence. But as soon as we're on the street she explodes into life.
"That's her!"
"Yeah…"
"You never said… Jesus Alex!" she's pissed. I mean really pissed. The force takes me by surprise.
"Look, I don't really even deal with her anymore-"
"Yeah, look like it!"
"Come on Paige, this isn't about her," I try getting hold of her arms, which are gesticulating wildly around her, she looks a bit like a crazy woman standing like that, backdropped by the cool corporateness of the building.
"Isn't it? Isn't it Alex? So tell me, are you fucking Ally McBeal in there? Hmm?" She stands with her hands on her hips, her tone severe, her stare deadly.
"No, I'm not," I hiss through my teeth, "Look, don't you think it would be better if we discuss this at home?" I'm trying desperately to remain calm, to keep my voice low. One of us has to.
"Yes, yes I do," she shrieks, "I think it would be much better to be able to discuss our lovelife at home. Problem is, you never talk at home Alex. About anything. And I have tried, God knows, I try all the time and you just…" she raises her hands in frustration then lets them collapse against her sides, despairingly.
"Well so have I," I growl back, defensively.
"Yeah, well, if this is you trying then…then…"
"Then what?"
"Then we have a serious problem." She says it reflexively. The "we" part clearing referring to just me. Her glare becomes less angry, but more determined.
"I don't know what to do anymore Alex," her voice is lower now, serious, sincere.
And everything aches inside my being. Everything seems on the verge of release. It's inevitable. I know my lines, I've been memorizing them since we got together. Since before, even.
"I don't know either…"
She looks down at the ground, arms crossed, pawing the sidewalk absently with her foot. "I think…I think I'm going to stay at a friend's for a while."
She looks back at me, to confirm that I heard her, that I understand what she's saying to me. But all I can hear is that catch in her voice, it seems to coincide with the precise second I feel my heart starting to crack apart.