did this remind me of?
I knew, at that moment, that my anger wasn’t really for him. It was for my father, of course, the Original Abandoner, the author of all of my insecurities and fears. But my father was three thousand miles away from me, with his back eternally turned. If I could only step back and look at it clearly, I’d see that Bruce was just some guy, like a thousand other guys, right down to the pot and the ponytail and the half-intended slipshod lazy life, right down to the dissertation he’d never finish, the bookshelves he’d never build, and the bathtub he’d never clean. Guys like Bruce were as common as white cotton socks sold in six-packs at the Wal-Mart, if not as clean, and all I’d have to do to acquire another one would be to show up at a Phish concert and smile.
But Bruce, as opposed to my father, was right here… and he was far from innocent. After all, hadn’t he left me, too?
I set Nifkin down and turned to face Bruce, feeling all of my fury – years of it – curl in my chest and rise to my throat. “You’re sorry?” I spat.
He took a step backward. “I am sorry,” he said, and his voice was so sad it sounded like he was being ripped open from the inside. “I know I should have called you, but… I just…”
I narrowed my eyes. He dropped his hands. “It was just too much,” he whispered. “With my father and all.”
I rolled my eyes to show what I thought of that excuse, and to make it clear that he and I would not be exchanging tender reminiscences of Bernard Guberman, or anything else, anytime soon.
“I know how strong you are,” he told me. “I knew you’d be okay.”
“Well, I have to be, don’t I, Bruce? You didn’t leave me much of a choice.”
“I’m sorry,” Bruce said again, looking even more wretched. “I… I hope you’ll be happy.”
“I can feel those good wishes radiating right off you,” I retorted. “Oh, wait. My mistake. That’s just pot smoke.” It felt as if a part of me had detached from my body, floated up to the ceiling, and was watching this scene unfold in terror… and in great sadness. Cannie, oh, Cannie, a little voice mourned, this isn’t who you’re angry at.
“And you know what?” I asked him. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a man. You, you’re nothing but a boy with big feet and facial hair. And you’re never going to be anything else. You’ll never be more than a third-rate writer at a second-rate magazine, and God help you when you can’t peddle any more memories of what we had together.”
The girlfriend sidled up to his side and laced her fingers through his. I just kept talking. “You’ll never be as good as me, and you’re always going to know that I was the best you ever had.”
The girlfriend attempted to say something, but I wasn’t going to stop.
“You’re always going to be some big goofy guy with a bunch of tapes in cardboard shoeboxes. The guy with the rolling papers. The guy with the Grateful Dead bootleg. Good old Bruce. Except that shtick gets tired after sophomore year. It gets old, the same way that you’re getting old. It’s unimproved, just like your writing. And you know what else?” I stepped right up to him, so we were practically toe to toe. “You’re never going to finish that dissertation. And you’re always going to live in New Jersey.”
Bruce stood there, stunned. His mouth was literally gaping open. It wasn’t a good look, emphasizing as it did his weak chin, and the network of wrinkles around his eyes.
The girlfriend looked up at me.
“Leave us alone,” she said in a little squeaky voice. My new Manolo Blahnik slides gave me an extra three inches and I felt Amazonian, powerful, untroubled by this little wisp of a thing who barely cleared my shoulders. I gave her my very best shut-up-and-let-the-?smart-people-talk look, the one I’d perfected over the years on my siblings. I wondered if she’d ever heard of tweezers. Sure, she could probably be looking at me and wondering whether I’d ever heard of Slim-Fast… or of birth control, for that matter. I found that I didn’t much care.
“I don’t think I was actually saying anything to you,” I said, and dredged up a line from the Take Back the Night March, circa 1989. “I don’t believe in blaming the victim.”
That snapped Bruce back to reality. He tightened his grip on her hand. “Leave her alone,” he said.
“Oh, Jesus.” I sighed. “Like I’m the one doing anything to either one of you. For your information,” I told the girlfriend, “I wrote him exactly one letter when I found out I was pregnant. One letter. And I won’t do it again. I’ve got plenty of money, and a better job than he does, in case he neglected to mention that when he gave you our history, and I’m going to do just fine. I hope the two of you are very happy together.” I picked up Nifkin, tossed my great hair, and breezed past a security guard. “I’d search his luggage,” I said, loud enough for Bruce to hear, “he’s probably holding.”
And then, still being pregnant, I went to the bathroom to pee.
My knees felt like water, my cheeks were hot. Hah, I thought. Hah!
I stood, flushed, and opened the cubicle door. And there was the new girlfriend, her arms crossed against her meager chest.
“Yes?” I inquired politely. “You have a comment?”
Her mouth twisted. She had, I noticed, a bit of an overbite.
“You think you’re so smart,” she said. “He never really loved you. He told me he didn’t.” Her voice was getting higher. Squeak, squeak, squeak. She sounded like a little stuffed animal, the kind that bleated when you squeezed it.
“Whereas you,” I said, “are obviously the real love of his life.” I knew, deep in my heart, in my good heart, that whatever quarrel I had, it wasn’t with her. But it was as if I couldn’t help myself.
Her lip curled, literally curled, like Nifkin’s when we played with his fluffy toys.
“Why don’t you leave us alone?” she hissed.
“Leave you alone?” I repeated. “Leave you alone? See, this is the theme you keep coming back to, and I don’t understand it. I’m not doing anything to either one of you. I live in Philadelphia, for heaven’s sake”
And then I saw it. Something in her face, and I knew what it was.
“He’s still talking about me, right?” I asked.
She opened her mouth to say something. I decided I didn’t want to stay around and hear it. I was suddenly enormously tired. I ached for sleep, for home, for my bed.
“He doesn’t,” she began.
“I don’t have time for this,” I told her, cutting her off. “I’ve got a life.” I tried to walk past her, but she was standing right by the sink, not giving me the room to pass.
“Move,” I said shortly.
“No,” she said. “No, you listen to me!” She put her hands on my shoulders, trying to get me to hold still, shoving me slightly. One minute I was up, trying to get past her, and the next minute my foot slipped on a puddle of water. My ankle buckled, turning underneath me. And I fell sideways, slamming my belly into the hard edge of the sink.
Bright pain flared, and I was lying on my back, lying on the floor, my ankle twisted at an angle I knew couldn’t mean anything good, and she was standing above me, panting like an animal, her cheeks flushed hectic red.
I sat up, putting both palms flat on the floor, and grabbed for the sink, when I felt a sudden tearing cramp. When I looked down and saw that I was bleeding. Not a lot, but… well, blood is not something you want to see anywhere below the belt when you’re only halfway through month seven.
