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By chris Date: 2008 Jul 06 Comment on this Work [[2008.07.06.21.28.28712]] |
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The radiator made a loud CRACK, in spite of its inactivity for the past hour. It was a contradiction, that radiator: such warmth, but so inhospitable - what good-natured appliance would lure one to sleep only to destroy it with a noise that echoed across the empty apartment? Certainly not any civilized radiator. Thoughts such as these swam through Zoe's head sluggishly as she lay awake. Most pressing was a missed call she'd noticed from Grand Rapids, Michigan. It wasn't as if she knew anyone in Michigan, and it was past business hours. Damn it, why didn't she just answer the phone, instead of the constant screening her voicemail endures? Zoe's ostensible reason for being in bed at 11:55 on that January night was sleep. But she could not. Something was wrong - or was it that something was finally right? She preferred assigning blame for her insomnia on the radiator, the missed call. It wasn't that simple, though, just she knew nothing was ever that simple. Well, perhaps some things, she allowed. Turning up the thermostat on the radiator, for instance, or checking her voicemail - those things were simple. So why was she somehow more at home with the complicated? Stop. Did she say that out loud? Did she merely think it? Either way, she pressed her face against the pillow, inhaled deeply, and knew exactly what she wished would stop: thoughts of the Guy, which had a way of seeping into even her most nocturnal reveries like mist under a door. The Guy (as he was known - always a proper noun) had no further appellation as yet; he wasn't, say, Mail Guy - a particular ex who worked at the post office and liked hockey - or Teacher Guy, a charming metrosexual who had taught communication skills at the City Detention Center. No, he was none of these things - yet. And she was glad of it. Outside her window she could hear the helicopters again. They were police helicopters, no doubt, probably headed for some meth deal gone bad in the not-too-far-off War Zone. Sirens could also usually be heard whenever Zoe chose to open her door - just a little - to listen for them. The song of the damned. It was now nearing midnight in darkest Albuquerque. New Mexico. U.S. of A. Media noche... She found herself edgier than normal. She looked down again at the rumpled pillow. It still smelled of The Guy's Givenchy cologne. Italian. The good stuff. He only wore the good stuff. That, and along with his penchant for silk shirts, made him an unlikely intellectual (and even less likely boyfriend material for Zoe). But was he really her boyfriend? Well, as she liked to joke to her friends, he would be if he didn't happen to be married. She usually said this in a deadpan, icy manner - but it hardly diffused their barely-concealed shock. Zoe didn't shock. Nothing rattled her (except maybe scorpions). She closed her eyes, remembered snippets of conversation from earlier that day - "You're beautiful," he said, looking into her hazel eyes, where he could really only see a smaller reflection of himself. "Shut up?" "I love that about you - the way you make something that should be unambiguously declarative into a...question?" "Stop talking like you're my teacher or something." "Well I've taught you quite a bit, if we're going to be totally truthful." She smiled, but so fast no one watching her expression would even have noticed. He noticed. He was getting to her. "Teach me some more," she said, and lay back down on the mattress, opening her arms. "Silent Spring" played on Zoe's laptop over the corner. But that was earlier. It was not in the present tense - and she needed something now. Perhaps what she really needed, she reflected, was a break from him altogether. It would make things simpler for all parties, would it not? But even as she said the words in the semi-dark room, she did not believe them. Who was the The Guy, anyway? She preferred to answer that question in terms that reflected the hopeless dreamer she really was - and the creative soul she wanted to be: He's a country I never thought I'd visit - but now I'm finding the climate pretty damn agreeable. Maybe I'll stay a while? He's music I don't understand but listen to anyway. Compulsively. He's a movie I know the ending to. And so on. In truth? In truth he reminded her of a certain creative writing teacher at Vassar. No, not the one who made her cry on more than one occasion - the one from Romania who had finished his studies at the university and fled just before the violent revolution of '89, when Zoe was...thirteen? Oh God, she half-spoke to herself, remembering how smooth his hands were. But there was nothing there, at least nothing more than garden variety student-professor semi-infatuation ("Yes! You can be semi-infatuated!" She would rather impatiently tell The Guy). The phone rang again. |