I had never been alone in someone else’s house. Slow steps forward, a pause after each, a moment to consider the wrongness of what I was doing—how rude of me to violate her private space with my eyes, to let the bottoms of my shoes sink into her carpet and leave behind the filth of where I’d been, she would be back at any moment, what would I say then? The next minute I’d see something new that would wipe the guilt from my thoughts and leave behind only curiosity, bright and shiny and begging to be stroked—I couldn’t stop thinking about how, at one point or another, everything in the room had been touched by her hands. I walked through Jenny’s living room turning my head left and right, fists clenched at my sides.
I went to the nearest chair and inspected its painting closely—it was terrible. They were all terrible. Two were rudimentary portraits of turtles, two were blocky houses in open fields, one was full of unintelligible blobs, one was just three different shades of blue, the last was blank, still lovely with possibility.
“Yikes. Hi.”
I turned around to see Jenny standing behind me, a twenty in hand, and a look I couldn’t read on her face. We stood facing each other in silence among the clutter and paintings. All the apologies I could think of sounded more like pleas—I’m sorry, please, I do things without thinking and I don’t know how to stop. Before I could say anything, she surprised me again by laughing. “So—I guess now you really think I’m crazy.”
She cleared her throat. “So let me explain.”
She pointed to the floor. “Old T-shirts to catch any paint that I spill.”
She pointed to the couch. “I actually attempted a healthy lunch, but my mouth got bored. Have you ever tried dipping your Hot Cheetos in cream cheese? What? No? Do it. One-hundred-Michelin-star rating.” She paused. “Now, the paintings. What do you think?”
“Oh. Well.”
She laughed again and I found myself becoming used to the sound. “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to worry. This isn’t a hobby of mine. I have no secret burning desire to become a painter. I was just in my son Adam’s room earlier and I realized he had no decorations on his walls and I thought I’d try and make some for him, brighten the space a little. As you can see, I forgot a very important detail.” She spread her arms wide. “I suck at art.”
“I like that one turtle,” I said. “His head is weird and dented. Like he got hit with something hard.”
“Yeah? Thanks. Turtles are Adam’s favorite animal. He wants to go to Hawaii so he can swim with them.”
I checked my watch; I’d been gone for way too long. I was about to ask for the money when I felt my lunch rising in me—a slice of pizza and a Snickers bars—ran toward a closed door that looked like it would lead to a bathroom, but was actually to a closet. I sunk down to my knees, grabbed the least expensive-looking thing, a rain boot, and puked in it.
The puke was watery—I could see a full, undigested circle of pepperoni—I puked some more and felt a hand on my shoulder, turned around to see Jenny hovering behind me. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I—”
“You’re pregnant.” She helped me off the ground, her smile stretched and warm, and I wished that a detail other than my pregnancy had made her look that way. “Congratulations! You doing this favor for me is proof you’re going to be a great mom.”
I almost puked more, but swallowed it down.
I didn’t know if I was noticeably showing yet and I was doing my best not to find out. In the mornings, before I showered, I’d undress with my back to the mirror. When I walked, I’d keep my head up and eyes focused straight ahead, I avoided looking down. It made my palms itch to think about the day when I wouldn’t be able to fit into any of my clothes.
My hands went to my belly as if to cover it. “Thanks.”
She frowned. “You’re not excited.” It wasn’t a question. She said it firmly, unblinking, a statement.
I lied often. It was just simpler that way. As a little kid, I remember being told repeatedly that lying was bad, lying never fixed anything, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and never lied. But no one ever told me how wonderful and easy it was to lie, how many conversations it would save me from and the stares it would avert—“Yeah, I’m fine!” “What? No, I’m not mad!” “Don’t worry, it’s okay!”—and did Abraham Lincoln really never, ever lie? In bed at night during the Civil War, did he toss and turn and soak his sheets with sweat and eventually wake Mary Todd to tell her, “Hold me, I’m scared, I think I fucked up,” or did he lie awake and sweat quietly, working his hardest to remain still, to keep his mouth shut, to let Mary Todd sleep soundly and unaware?
Lying was simpler. I repeated this in my head over and over as I stood in Jenny’s living room looking at everything except her—each shitty painting, the blank canvas, the tub of cream cheese, the old T-shirts on the ground. I kept returning to one T-shirt. It was purple and had a large cobra head in the center with the words “Excellence is” underneath. The rest of the sentence was cut off by a Hawaiian shirt.
“Hey, you okay?”
I looked away from the cobra and back to Jenny. She was staring at me with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open a little. I noticed a piece of lettuce stuck between her bottom front teeth and I desperately wanted to reach over and pull it out, let my fingers linger in her mouth and spit, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie, even if it was easier.
“No,” I said. “I’m not excited.”
She looked away from me and I regretted saying anything, regretted that I spoke truth and it revealed my ugliness, let it breathe and writhe in the daylight. Then she looked back at me and said, “Good.”
“What?”
“It’s good you’re not excited. Or it’s good you know you’re not excited.” Her voice was different now, more like it was when I first heard it on the phone—low, trembling, a voice standing on the top of a ladder, the lip of a skyscraper, the peak of a mountain, a voice that can’t help but look over the edge even though it knows this will serve only as a reminder that it’s a long way down, a voice that needed to be cradled, tucked in gently each night. “People will always love telling you how you’re supposed to be feeling and it will always make you feel less than when you don’t feel it. I’m sorry if I was being one of those people.” She shook her head. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“I’ll tell you what I wish someone told me when I was eighteen—it never goes away.”
“What is ‘it,’ exactly?”
“All of it, any of it, just it.” Suddenly, she reached out and pushed a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “Jesus, you’re so young. Of course you’re not excited.”