Where We've Made It Dark, page 2
— Can I try it on?
— Sure, what size are you?
— Two.
— Okay, we might still have that. Let me set you up in a room.
I step past the curtain and pull my way out of jacket, boots, shirt, and jeans. They hang on the hook like pelts, ready to get me through snow again. There’s something greasy all over about me in the mirror, my lacy, worn-down underwear and strangers taking up the same air a few steps away. Feet go through first, and what’s left of the nail polish from Brunswick looks back, a scraped and outgrown orange red. They make an uneven smile, clownish up through the circle of otherworldly white. I wriggle each stretch of the dress up past my hips and onto my waist, and the heavy golden zipper bites me snugly in.
The gorget’s old and new, something kept already there from before. Tight to a turtleneck as Mom’s wedding cheongsam. A milk chocolate layer splits in spiderwebs of cappuccino. There’s a weight, fingers to collarbone. The black of my hair lashes at the surface and cuts its own profile, adding something new. Something mine.
The ripples take each of my movements. The bust has an added texture, close to houndstooth, luminescent and chiseled from ivory and pearls. Its firmness gives me a nice shape beneath the brown. I feel the dress up and down, something saved for a hidden moment when Aidan is here.
— Wow, you look like an Amazon.
— Neat, huh?
— Where are you going to go dressed like that?
— Mom, it’s really cute.
— You look good. I just don’t understand when you are going to wear something like that.
— I don’t know, just whenever.
— If I get that, it’ll sit in your closet.
I keep her from turning aside.
— No it won’t, I promise. I’ll wear it out of the store if you want.
— Oh God, not in those shoes.
Her laughing is more of an eheh than a heheh, still a world away from haha. The worn-in space of it bears down, but there’s nothing cutting, even if it comes at my expense. Her chin dips through watermarked cheeks, making her smile wax fuller and still small at the angle. She looks up from the slant as though it’s my joke that’s caught her unawares.
— Okay, but don’t you want something more? Like this?
— No, I really like it.
She looks back at what’s in her hand.
— This one’s nice too.
I set up to take a picture back in the room. The marionette strut of my arm puts only the dress in frame. It’s downward and accentuating. The last bit of mobility clicks. Send to Aidan. ;-)
They’re all at the register with no one on the floor. The rest of the store is empty as people dart in the aquarium outside. One of the girls is caught on nothing, another relaying it all. The one who helped us is barely smiling in our direction. She stays the whole way over until the dress is there on the counter.
— So it’s a match?
— She likes it.
Mom puckers over a smile.
— I bet you look stunning!
— Thanks.
She begins the dance of folding, bagging, card taking, receipt pulling, receipt giving. Her pile of freckles leaves her bordering on palomino. The others smile back at us evenly, lips tight, eyes red at the rims. A phone is on the counter, and one fingers at it lightly. The other taps nearby with annoyance at anything. I arch my eyebrow, but she doesn’t see or care. The girl from Rossetti hands us the bag. We get a wordless crinkle of lips and teeth that’s moused its way out. But her eyes still aren’t at either of ours.
My home screen stays empty on smiling Aidan.
DE YOUNG
— So how the hell do we have zombies now?
— I know.
— I mean, it’s bad enough that every show is zombies this and world ending that. Now it’s actually happening?
— I still don’t get how it’s real.
— Right? Like what, is it a parasite? Does the virus come with a little defibrillator? And are we really that appetizing to them? I mean, you and me, sure. Who wouldn’t want a bite of us? But hordes of corpse-monsters ready to consume all of society as we know it? Now that’s going a bit far.
The flat stretch he makes of far knocks my laughter out in bubbles.
— I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to remain uneaten.
— Oh, me too, but won’t fault them. Of course we’d get those pulseless hearts pounding.
— So that’s your great plan; you and I get the zombies hot and bothered?
— I wouldn’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
A phone’s thrown across the room and a woman just bends without it. When she doesn’t move, someone old and local brings it back to her, balancing his tray.
— So how’d you find out, Imogen?
My slouch doesn’t take me anywhere.
— Nothing special, just a dozen notifications shouting that the world was over.
— Oh, well, my story is funnier. I was taking a shower, and my mom starts pounding on the door, saying that if I don’t hurry up and get out right now, I’ll make her late for work. And she doesn’t stop either when I yell back for her to just tell me what it is. So I jump into a towel with conditioner in my hair, and she just tells me that it’s zombies. They say it’s zombies now in Indonesia. And then she hugs me while I’m wet and trying to keep my towel up. So I just say, “Oh, I’m sure they’re not that bad,” like it’s the flu or something. And she looks at me like I’m her idiot son and tells me I’m probably right. And then she runs off to work with her shirt wet.
— Well, that’s, um, touching.
— You know, if she could have waited for just, like, five minutes, I think I still might have her respect. And that hug would have been so much better than the one that’s burned into me now.
The rubbery curl of his lips catches on his smile.
— Aw, Wes, I can hug you if that’ll make you feel better.
— Well, you did just give me one. But okay, I’ll take seconds.
We get up from the cafeteria chairs and let them make their awkward screeches. The hug’s chest forward with our arms doing most of the work. The childishness goes to the others around us, and their audience makes it hum.
— So tell me, how’s boyfriended life?
— It’s good. Aidan’s fine; he’s Aidan.
— What does that mean? He’s Aidan?
The woman at the table is still there.
— It means long distance sucks. All the good, new parts of you are frozen.
— Aw, well, aren’t you the smitten kitten?
The move builds pillars into his shoulders that stay crossed with his arms.
— You said he’s coming here?
— He’d better.
— Well, we should meet up. Just tell him to get flight insurance.
Air puffs out across my teeth.
— He’s waiting to figure out his schedule since he’s helping out at his dad’s firm. At least he has something to do.
— I don’t know about you, but right now all I’m good for is a few months of absolute nothing.
The chair doesn’t give, and he slips back from leaning with a start. Our giggle brambles over the hard, geometric surfaces around us and slips out of sight.
— So, what, does that make him the prelaw type?
— What do you mean? Like, litigious?
— Yes, Imogen, would you call him litigious?
I enunciate my words back at him.
— No, I would not call him litigious, Wesley.
— No? Because I’ve been getting some real straitlaced vibes from the guy so far. He hasn’t been too into the rules of a party game or talking about any Supreme Court decisions, has he?
— No.
— Really? No SCOTUS or POTUS talk yet?
— What’s that?
He leans back.
— Oh dear.
— I mean, he’s been taking econ and poli sci.
— Okay, I get it. So you’ve been dating your mother.
— Oh God, you’re bad!
I swat at him, and the air is ready for much more.
— Wait, how is it that you don’t know SCOTUS?
— I don’t know. She never talks about work. And if anything, I’m more into my dad’s stuff.
Servers bring and carry off food, black as houseflies.
— Okay, fine, you just tell me what he’s like, then.
— He’s great! I think you’d like him.
— Well, he must be a lot of fun if he can keep up with you.
— Yeah, he is. He’s sweet. I don’t know. We just click. Like, close without it taking any kind of effort click. You know?
He shocks nacreous at me.
— Oh love, it’s always effort to win people over this hard.
— Well, you are charming.
— I am, thank you.
— But he’s, I don’t know, someone I feel at home with.
— That sounds cozy.
— Yeah, he’s my old leather chair.
— Old?
— Well, familiar.
— Okay, so we’re smoking cigars and drinking brandy in the dorm room, then?
Long fingers twirl the air into a snifter. He laughs too much.
— No, he’s a regular guy. Sometimes he parties with his guy friends and I stay out with my girls. Or we go off on little adventures together. Normal college stuff.
— Play sleepovers too?
— Yes.
My eyebrows join in the answer.
— Well good, you need some shiny new fun in your life now that we’re on different coasts.
— I have fun, Wes.
The white undersides of his eyes roll wild.
— Imogen, you asked that we meet at a museum.
— Oh shut up, you know you wanted to come too.
— I did. I just also want to get you out. Have a drink?
— No ID.
— Oh, come on. I know a guy.
— You know a guy.
— I know plenty. Of guys.
He bubbles and I bubble into laughter. I ditch the empty coffee for the crumbs of carrot cake that Wes got to have more of than me.
His fingers run through the length of his hair, and he looks down briefly as the blades flop back along his scalp. He stays there, blond as the sun.
— So do you want to actually go see some art now?
— Well, we did pay to be here.
— But who says money matters anymore?
— I think the zombies have to actually be here, Wes.
The woman just looks normal now. I could check my phone but follow Wes to the hallway, where the Wayne Thiebauds can be seen by everyone exiting the bathroom.
We walk over the muddy agriculture and get straight to the cityscape. The way he dodges the responsibility to actually paint the city is just funny. We’re thrown out by a triangle that has the painting half filled with warm, steel-blue highway. In a bad seat, and we lost the view. The interesting bits are left to scuffle over each other for our attention, the ruddy hillside, the other curve of highway, the tower that’s made from bathroom blocks of blue-green glass.
The bit of road that’s there is a delightfully impossible vertical stretch that stands right up like another tower. Only the roads here can drive straight into the sky or deep down to the earth like that. The street anchors everything. All the angles sink into it, make it a pit. I have to fight away the rest of the painting just to get there. Everything else keeps buzzing around me, wanting to be let in. If I could just rip the highway from the canvas, I might get to what matters here. Where everything’s headed.
— Where do you think those trucks are going?
— The trucks? I don’t know. Nowhere. They’re right where they are.
— Yeah, but, okay, fine, don’t play my game.
Wes looks sour to the coats of people not far off.
— They’re going to deliver Campbell’s soup cans to Andy Warhol.
— Ooh, well, I think they’re full of toys, but they’re all defective rejects. Makes it nice and gritty, right?
— That’d make for a great title. Gritty Defective Reject Toys Headed to Orphanage.
— You should be an artist, Imogen.
— Right, because that makes sense now.
His buoyancy comes adrift at the center, elbows to fingertips.
— Well, we’re still here.
He jumps back close.
— You want to go play Indiana Jones in the Mayan and Aztec art?
— You have your bullwhip?
— Oh, you know it.
The lighting grows warm and dim in the plasticization of some used-up ritual. The room is brown with vessels, figures, everything detailed over and over with the same slugs of clay. Wes pulls me to the stub of a ceremonial knife that shows obsidian and turquoise.
— Hey, maybe they’re white walkers. Should we take it?
My laugh lingers in the hollow till the pieces fall back into dustiness.
— I don’t know, the blade is well-set, but it’s pretty much an old tooth.
— But magic.
— Well, if what it is melted itself free out of Antarctica, we’re coming back.
— Deal.
We continue in the artifacts. Wes leans close but doesn’t whisper.
— Won’t take much for these pots and wall chunks to slip back into ruin.
He stays between joke and regret. I go to the next piece.
— Well, it’s not like we haven’t seen the movies. Where’s it actually end? Bombs can’t stop what could always happen. And a cure’s not going to ever get worldwide.
A clay dog stays on prongs between us.
— I mean, do you see how people’ve been? No one wants to even be here. It’s like we’re all afraid of each other.
— Okay.
Wes shines wet at me in the temple lighting. I move into his ribs and merge us along, coupled.
— Anyway, I guess this would be a funny site for whoever survives.
He squeezes me back, and the next room’s clogged with colors and saurian twists of glass. It’s all play, and no part of it shakes the weight of a price tag sticking somewhere underneath.
A Klimt blanket of metal tabs weaves the wall in ripples. In my face is a cube of suspended char, stopping me. Each black piece hangs from its own absent string, shattered and filling the space of a cell.
— Speaking of ruins.
— Yeah.
Wes fingers the placard on the wall.
— It says it’s from a burnt-down church in the South. Arson.
We can’t move to its sides, but we try.
— I really like how it raises everything up in a way you could never see. It all belongs in a dump from decades ago, right? But here it is.
— It’s the junkyard Matrix.
— I kind of wish I could just walk right through it.
— Uh, I see nails.
He gulps the would-be pain as I’m still at the edge. Every part’s smashed.
— It’s like that woven foil. I think that’s made from wrappers or something. It’s all violence, waste that they’re creating from. They found a way to make something ruined work, right? Maybe we can too.
Wes’s eyes explode back at me.
— So we hash together installation art from zombie parts? Ooh, I know. We put half a dozen disembodied zombie heads on the wall so people can watch them snap and stuff. Seven deadly sins? Wait, that is what happens to them, right? The heads stay alive?
— Ugh, I hope not.
What’s ahead is too small and simple to get us forward. We turn back.
— There’s just got to be a way to adapt, right?
— I’m fine so long as we don’t end up in a gallery ourselves.
He stays for more from me, all soft in the gap.
— I’m sure that we can find a way to make it through whatever this is, Imogen.
Something tugs at my pocket.
— Oh, that’s my dad.
— Ooh, good luck.
The buzzing grows until the foyer swallows it and me in its leviathan din. Everything is scrubbed clear to white, ahead and above.
— Hi Dad.
— Imogen, hi.
His voice becomes a tunneled storm.
— I imagine you know the news now.
— Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.
— Yes, crazy’s a good word for it. So are you at the de Young right now?
— Yeah, I’m out here with Wes.
— Oh, I hope he’s doing well.
— He’s fine.
— What about you? Are you doing okay?
People break their color again and again into the greyed white.
— Yeah, sure, I’m fine. It’s not like the zombies are actually here, right?
I stop face-to-the-brightest-part, leaving the glare where it comes.
— Right, well, good. Don’t stay out late, okay? We need to all be here for dinner.
— Yeah, that sounds good.
— Good, okay, well I just wanted to check in on you. We haven’t had the chance to talk much since yesterday, but I want you to know that everything’s fine. Okay?
— Okay Dad, I know. We’ll figure it out.
— We will.
The burrowed noise circles in on itself.
— Okay, enjoy yourself. Tell Wes I say hi.
— I will.
— I love you.
— Love you too.
Wes is waiting with his smile spread to its corners.
— Good?
— Yeah, he’s just checking in. Get to have a family meeting tonight.
— Fun.
He doesn’t let the word end.
— Just remember to bring your serious face. They don’t like it when you have more fun than them.
We head out.
— Yes, must not joke ourselves to death. First rule of the new era that I guess we have to get set in stone.
We leave behind the complex that’s its own copper monument. The tower winds above the tree line like something built for the future.
FAMILY MEETING
— I really think that everything is going to be just fine.
He keeps us both in the same look.
— Dad, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. We know how zombies work.
