Beautiful Blemish (3 page)

    
"I have to get to work," I say again, getting to my feet groggily.

    
"One of the maintenance men are working on the office door," says Steffen.
 
"Apparently the security system was tampered with."

I am given a taxi ride home for the morning but return in the afternoon to apologize to my boss.

    
"It's no fault of yours, Carol.
 
The door code was messed up.
 
Security thinks someone may have broken in here, but there's nothing missing.
 
Besides, I'm more worried about your well-being.
 
Take the day off.
 
We don't need you here now."

    
Before I leave I check my desk and find a videotape on my chair.
 
There is no label on it and I have no idea what it is.
 
I step into one of the conference rooms, the one with the VCR and pop in the tape.
 
The screen fades in with black and white images from a football game.
 
A sideline view of bulky men battering each other into a muddy field.
 
There is no sound.
 
After one of the teams score on a short run, the video cuts to players celebrating in the locker room.
 
In the background you can see many of the players walking naked into the showers.
 
The camera begins to shake a little and then the screen goes black.

The following week I notice that Skip keeps his distance from me as I sleepily glide into work each morning.
 
He still waves however, and mouths a "good morning" to me.
 
His hair is looking darker and maybe greased flat on the sides.
 
His head sparkles.
 

    
My mother is visiting me this week and she comes to meet me for lunch on Wednesday.

    
"Are you getting any?" she asks me over a vanilla milkshake.

    
"Getting any what?" I chat back innocently.

    
"You know, any non-battery operated action."

    
"No, I don't have the time, mother."

    
My mother pulls the red straw out of the milkshake and slides her gray tongue up the sides, getting every drop.
 
For a long time it seemed that everything she did had some sort of sexual tint to it.
 
When I was a kid she would make gingerbread cookies for me and an extra batch with penises for herself.
 
I never brought boyfriends over because she was always running around with hardly any clothes.
 
She has always been a sex addict, even telling me recently about a group of her friends going out to see strippers.
 
My dad was a good sport when it came to her antics and was married to her for over forty years before the disease claimed him ten years ago.
 
"You know, I've had some good luck recently," she informed me.

    
"Please don't tell me what I think you're going to tell me," I say with a mouthful of French fries.

    
"Well, you can't blame them," she says.
 
"Some men like '
em
young and dumb, and some like '
em
aged and experienced."

    
"Just don't get carried away and get remarried or anything.
 
Dad would piss in his grave."

    
My mother looks at me and smiles.
 
"I got me an old general the other night," she whispers.
 
"We were doing that Latino dancing and his big hands were--"

    
"I'd rather not hear this, mom."

After lunch, my mother walks me back to the office and gives me a hug.
 
I go to my desk and watch my mother as she saunters back into the heavy flow of mall traffic.
 
Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, Skip is beside her, nodding his small shiny head at her and complimenting her on her open-toed rhinestone shoes.
 
I push myself up from my desk and feel my lunch rise in my throat.
 
I run to the door and throw myself back into the hallway, but it's too late.
 
They have disappeared, somewhere in the consuming traffic of people.

That night I try to call my mom's hotel room but there is no answer.
 
I find the football card that Skip put on my car and try to find his name in the phone book.
 
I locate several
Tuttles
in the white pages and call the one with the initial J.
 
I wonder how someone with a name like Jake gets a nickname like Skip.
 
I push a code into my telephone so that he can't return my call.
 
I dial the number and begin to feel hot and stiff.
 
"Hello," a woman's voice sings to me.
 
"Hello," she says again.
 
I listen for sounds, any evidence that it is Skip's number.
 
I start to say, "Is Skip there?" but the woman interrupts me and says she can't hear me.
 
I hang up.

    
It is still too early to go to bed and I am feeling restless, afraid, somehow violated.
 
I turn on the television and find myself becoming intrigued with a documentary program about Tony Orlando.
 
I remember watching the Tony Orlando and Dawn Show as a child, or maybe it was a teenager.
 
I remember that my father didn't like him, and if he came home while my mother and I were watching, he would turn the channel furiously.
 
This was back when there were only three or four channels.
 
I'm not sure if my father was racist but he said he hated Mexican music.
 
Still, he had no problem eating Mexican food nearly every day.

    
All of these memories make me feel like crying and make me wish I could talk to my father and ask him about his feelings concerning
Mexico
.
 
I phone my mother once again.
 
This time she picks up.
 
"Mother, this is Carol.
 
Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

    
"I'm a little occupied right now, honey," she says.

    
All my fear comes rushing back.
 
"What do you mean?
 
Do you have company?"

    
"Do
I
ever."

    
"Mother, wait.
 
Is there a man named Skip over there with you?"

    
"Why yes, honey, we were talking about you earlier.
 
He says he knows you from the mall.
 
Told me you walked with him the other day, before you passed out.
 
It was so nice of him to help you."

    
"Mother, there is something wrong with that man.
 
He keeps leaving me these weird gifts.
 
I think he was the one who broke into the office last week.
 
And he did something to the men's bathroom at work too."

    
"Well, I believe you when you say he's not the most ordinary man, but
honey,
I think I'm a pretty good judge of character.
 
And besides, we just instantly hit it off."

    
I feel like screaming, pleading, driving over to her hotel and throwing the mall walker out of her room.
 
My mother is anxious to get off the phone and all I can say to her is, "Call me if he does anything weird, and be careful."

The next morning I see Skip walking with a stretching grin on his face.
 
It seems to almost cut his face in half.
 
He trots over to me and extends his hand.
 
"It was such a pleasure to meet your mother yesterday," he says.
 
I reluctantly take his hand as he catches his breath.
 
"I saw you talking to her and I just wanted to ask her how you were.
 
I thought it was just one of your friends or a sister.
 
She's really something."
 
He pulls me into his chest and gives me a hug.
 
Once more, I feel hot and stiff.
 
"I'm glad to see you're doing okay.
 
You look like you're at the top of your health and beauty again.
 
I guess it must run in the family," he says to my ear.
 
He releases me and I almost crumble to the ground.
 
Without muttering a single word to him, I slip into the office and head to the bathroom.
 
I release a small amount of bile into the toilet.

    
As the workday progresses,
a queasiness
remains floating in my belly.
 
I answer the phone and run scheduling charts on my computer. Nearly every time I look up I notice Skip walking by outside the window, his body moving forward, yet his face always turned to me, mouth smiling, eyes gleaming.
 
Even among the
midday
shoppers, he is still walking back and forth through the long mall, working up a sweat.

    
I can't concentrate and begin to run the wrong charts.
 
My boss comes up to me and, dreading his criticism, I brace myself for some disciplinary words.
 
Instead, he gives me a neatly wrapped gift, the size of a large book.
 
"This was just delivered for you," he tells me.
 
I give him a worried look but he just smiles weakly and walks away.

    
I open the wrapping and it is a photo album.
 
It is neatly put together and has many photographs of me as a young girl, playing with my relatives or my old dog, a beagle named Kip.
 
There are photos of my mother and father together, of vacations, of
holidays,
sometimes there are pictures of people I can't recognize.
 
The last page has an envelope glued into it.
 
I open the envelope and find a couple of
Polaroids
inside.
 
The first one is of my mother, naked and looking directly into the camera.
 
She is
laying
on her side on a nondescript hotel bed.
 
At first I want to laugh, but I stifle myself and set it face-down on my desk.

    
The next Polaroid shows a man wearing a football helmet, shoulder pads, and nothing else.
 
He stands atop the same bed, hands on his hips like a super hero.
 
Awkwardly, it is hard to tell if he is excited or not.
 
His penis is pointing straight at the camera and is surrounded by a circular bush of hair.
 
The pupils of his eyes are red from the flashbulb.
 
I quickly put it down and pick up the telephone to call my mother.
 
There is no answer at her hotel room.
 
I find tears in my eyes and put my face in my hands.
 
I breathe deeply and count to twenty inside my head.
 
When I stand to stretch I see him again, walking by, smiling,
sipping
out of an Orange Julius.
 
He sees me move away from my desk and stops as if waiting for me to come out and thank him, as if he's been waiting this whole time for me to receive his present.
 
I try to collect myself and call over to another woman that I'm taking a quick break.