A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That (8 page)

Ella didn't respond. She turned away from him and stared out the window at the parking lot, at the black asphalt, not saying a word. She wondered how hot the asphalt was, if it was hot enough to fry an egg. She imagined what it would be like to walk on the asphalt in bare feet, wondered how long she could take it.

“Because there's nowhere to go,” he continued.

“You're trapped, Jack,” she said to the window.

“That's not what I mean.”

She turned and looked at him.

“I don't know what I mean, Ella.”

“I know what you mean. You mean that one person is sitting right beside another person, in close proximity, and there's not a lot you can do about it. But that's only when the car's moving, Jack. That's about speed, the freeway, danger.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“And we're not on the freeway. We're not even on our way to the corner store for milk. Go ahead, unlock the door. Step outside, Jack. We're sitting still,” she reminded him.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Go,” she repeated.

“I don't want to.”

“The goatee looks stupid, you know? You don't look like a guy who'd have a goatee.”

“I'll shave it for you,” he said.

“Not for me—don't do anything for me.”

“If you don't like it …”

“It doesn't look right on your face.”

“Okay—it's gone. Tonight I'll get rid of it.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “I'm going to take the bus home,” she told him.

He leaned toward her. He wrapped his hand around hers and around the handle too, and they stayed there like that, his body almost horizontal, at an angle in front of her, for a good few minutes. Finally, he pried her hand away and placed it, with his, in her lap. “No,” he said softly.

She didn't move or struggle. Instead, she let his hand rest on her hand—and she let both of them rest in her lap.

The teenagers, arm in arm now, came out of the restaurant. The boy was smiling, holding a fat, white bag of food. There was a ridiculous skip in his step.

“We're young,” Jack said again.

“And married,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, “that too.”

3.

The Monday before she caught Jack and Sarah kissing, Ella spent the evening with her husband watching a documentary he brought home from his work about the Livingstone's Fruit bat. The film was meant to awaken her curiosity. He wanted to entice her into coming to his lab for a visit. It was something she avoided, seeing him with the bats, up close in that environment.
I'm too tired, she'd say. Another day, she'd insist. I've got an exam to study for, all this paperwork from the clinic to look over.

It was dusk, and Jack was crouched down on the living room rug in front of the TV and VCR in just his boxers, rewinding the tape. His back was broad and smooth and tan. “I want you to come to the lab this week,” he said over his shoulder. “I want you to pick a day and give me one hour. Just one hour, Ella.”

“It's a busy week. I've got a final on Thursday,” she said.

“I've been there a year already.”

“Has it been that long?”

“I want you to meet people—and the bats too,” he said, turning, smiling at her.

“They're dead, Jack.”

He scowled playfully, then returned to the tape. “I want you to meet the dead bats, then,” he said.

“We'll see.”

“I've been to
your
work.” He pushed the start button, then jumped up and moved to the couch. They sat side by side with a bowl of popcorn between them, watching the film. The lights were off. A vanilla candle was burning on the coffee table. Because there was only one beer left in the refrigerator, they passed the bottle back and forth.

Ella avoided the lab itself, but she loved the facts and was learning them: the bats were endangered, they were mostly black with spots of golden fur, their wingspans could reach up to five or six feet. Males and females looked alike.

As their name implied, they liked fruit—no blood for them, just papaya, pineapple, figs, and avocados. It made them seem nicer somehow, more considerate than other bat species that were out in the night sucking on sleeping goats and cows.

The Livingstone's wings were actually five distinct fingers covered by thin skin. There was a thumb, which had a fingernail and was used mainly to grip branches, leaves, and fruit. Jack swore to Ella that the bats used their thumbs to hold on to their loved ones. Ella looked down at her own hands, her own fingers, and thought about knuckles, fingertips, and nail polish. She twisted her wedding ring and moved closer to her husband.

“Bats are shy,” he said. “And sweet. The rumors aren't true. These here, they don't even want blood.”

“I still don't think I can love them,” Ella said.

“You don't have to love them,” he said. “It would be nice if you were just more interested in what I do.”

“I
am
interested,” she said.

“You want to learn things from far away,” he said. “You don't want to see them for yourself.”

“That's not true,” she said. “I work at a family planning clinic. I see things up close all the time. Ever see gonorrhea on a slide?”

“No,” he said, “but I like to have faces to go with the names you talk about.”

“You work with bats, Jack—not people.”

“I wish you'd take more of an interest in my work, that's all.”

“I know,” she said. “And I'm trying. I'm watching this film with you, aren't I?”

He reached into the bowl for a handful of popcorn. “If you want, I'll bring home the film about the Hammerheads in Africa. They're like bar whores.”

Ella smiled.

“They're wild,” Jack said, chewing and talking at once. “The horny males come from miles around to one specific place, looking for females.”

“Like going to Ruby's Room,” she said.

Jack nodded. “Then the males do a little wing dance,” he said, doing a shimmy and shake on the couch himself.

She laughed. “What about the females?” she wanted to know.

“They fly around, checking out the dudes. When the female finds a guy whose dancing turns her on, the two of them
make friends.”

“Like Ruby's Room,” she said again.

“Then the females go off alone to have their babies.”

“Like the girls at the clinic.”

He kissed her quickly on the lips before turning back to the screen, where a Livingstone's was spreading out his wings. “Look at that,” Jack said. “Would you look at that?”

“I'm looking,” she said.

“Amazing,” Jack said. “Just look at his thumb.”

 

In bed later, Ella wanted to talk about Georgia Carter. “What's with you and this girl?” Jack wanted to know.

Ella shrugged.

“She gets to you—I can see it in your face,” he said.

“You smell like butter and beer,” she said, teasing. “That goatee of yours sops up everything.”

“You like it though, right? You think it looks good, don't you?” Jack tugged on the goatee and looked at her for approval.

“It looks fine, Jack, but I do sort of miss your face.”

“My face is right here,” he said.

“Your
whole
face.”

He propped a couple pillows against the headboard and leaned back. He folded his hands on his bare stomach. “What's with Georgia now?” Jack asked, giving in.

“She's pregnant,” Ella said. “And says it's immaculate.”

He laughed.

“It's not funny,” she said.

“It's sort of funny, Ella,” he said.

“It's not—she looks right at me and says the most ridiculous things.”

“She doesn't expect you to believe that.”

“I think she might believe it herself.”

“Then she's crazy.”

“She's not crazy.”

“Well, she's a liar, then.”

“How can I help her if she lies to me?”

“You can't.”

“How can I tell her how to protect herself if she denies that there's a partner?”

“Or
partners”

She put her cheek on his chest, and then her palm. She touched the few dark hairs and one tiny mole.

“You can't help all of them,” he said, stroking her hair.

“Her mother left—moved to another state. Her brother's off at college. And there's something wrong with her father,” she said.

“You think he touches her?”

“No, no, it's not that,” Ella said. “He has some sort of brain injury or illness, like early Alzheimer's.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen, almost seventeen.”

“Old enough to know what she's doing.”

Ella shook her head into Jack's chest. “I wish I'd met her years ago. When she was twelve or thirteen, I could have helped her.”

“Who knows,” he said.

“I could have,” she insisted. “Girls like that have to begin somewhere, Jack. Maybe she loved a boy at school, gave it up to him, and he dumped her. Maybe he didn't like her at all, just wanted to get into her pants.”

“So she moved on to the whole football team?” His voice was sarcastic.

“Yes, Jack—so she moved on.”

“Maybe this Georgia's a free spirit—or plain horny. Some girls are just hornier than others,” he said. “You suggest she play safe. That's all you can do.”

“There's something about her.”

“There's something about
you,”
he said, lifting Ella's chin, his lips coming down to meet hers.

4.

Ella had been working at the clinic for nearly five years. She'd seen other counselors and two doctors come and go. She'd watched girls turn into women, and grown women lose so much weight that they turned back into girls. There were unexplained bruises and swollen faces. She listened to what were obviously lies and also to what was so horribly the truth. There were timid girls who were afraid of the boys they left in the waiting room, and there were cocky girls leaning in to confide in Ella about pregnancies:
He thinks it's his, but I don't fucking know whose it is.

There were forgettable girls clustered together in the waiting room. Girls wanting the pill, tossing their hair or applying lip gloss in unison. Girls who were excited, almost giddy, starting out and wanting to be safe, and there were others who seemed tired already at fifteen, weary, heads bowed, eyes to the floor. Some were shy, while others were bold, brazen, with their cigarettes still glowing at their lips. “Put that out,” Ella would scold from behind the window. “Where do you think you are? What are you thinking?” she'd say.

Ella had been hired as a counselor but performed minor medical tasks as well. She took blood pressure, weighed them, and also took blood from their fingers. She'd smear a few drops on a tiny slide and print the girl's name underneath it with a special pen. She'd hold a jerking finger still with two of her own and prick it with a lancet.

“Are you a doctor?” one exceptionally nervous girl asked.

“No.” Ella held the tiny razorblade and aimed.

“What are you then?”

“I'm an English major.”

“A
what?”
The girl was horrified, trying to pull her finger from Ella's grip.

“I write poems.” Ella held tight.

“Poems? Are you kidding?”

“Nope,” Ella said, bringing the lancet down, jabbing at the pink pad of the girl's finger.

A week after she was caught kissing Jack, Sarah cornered Ella outside examining room number 2 and said that she'd be leaving the clinic by spring. She'd sworn that she was back with her longtime boyfriend, Eddie, and that he'd asked her to marry him—they'd even set a date. “I have work to do,” Ella said, walking away from her.

Their schedules only overlapped on Thursdays, and even then Ella did her best to stay at the opposite end of the clinic—if Sarah was with clients, Ella did inventory. If Sarah was in the counselor's lounge, Ella ate her lunch in the back room. Still, the clinic was small, and it was impossible to avoid her completely.

On a Thursday morning Ella was sitting on the couch in the counselors' lounge, looking at a new girl's chart. Dahona Strickland was thirteen and her complaints were numerous: fever, body aches, weight loss, and a vaginal rash that had spread to her thighs. Ella closed the folder and stood up. She held the chart under her arm and began walking down the hall toward the waiting room. She was wondering about Dahona, thinking about the horrible diseases and their beautiful names: chlamydia, gonorrhea, and condyloma. How melodic the words themselves were, how if she didn't know what they looked like on a slide, they might sound like perfect names for a girl. She was thinking about the next poem she'd write for Rachel's class when Sarah turned the corner. She met Sarah's eyes for the briefest second and Ella decided that she'd call her new poem “Sarah,” and she'd use the worst case of herpes she'd ever seen, use that poor Amy Duncan—whose sores were so ripe and so plentiful that she refused to urinate—to describe Sarah's condition. “I'm getting married, Ella. It was a mistake,” Sarah said, but Ella was already halfway down the hall, on her way to Dahona Strickland, and pretending not to hear her.