Page 69 of Everything You Want Me to Be
“I don’t understand why you play football.” I mimicked him in the same stupid tone as I cued the video camera on top of the dresser.
“Okay, okay.” He sighed and picked up the script, then squinted at it like it was in Chinese. “This part?”
“You’re a sweetheart.” I gave him a peck on the cheek and backed into the center of the room. While he worked up the nerve to say Shakespeare out loud, I let myself become Lady MacBeth. I looked at Tommy until the horny teenager faded away and he became my instrument. I looked at his fingers and saw a hand that was mine to wield, that I could drive to murder the king himself. I looked at his confused expression and saw the madness that we would soon share. I became cold, too cold to feel. By the time he cleared his throat to say his first line, I could taste my own death.
Somehow on the Friday of spring break we got a perfect day, the kind of nauseating perfection you only see in commercials. The sky was cloudless and the sun warmed you in your bones as it devoured the snowbanks. Dad immediately disappeared into the barn, getting his equipment ready for planting, while Mom paged through seed catalogs for her garden and hung sheets out on the line to dry. I was giddy because during my shift on Wednesday Peter had dropped off a flash drive with a single picture on it. It was a photograph of the barn.
“Enjoying your spring break?” he asked nonchalantly when he came back for the picture.
“It’s nothing special.”
“Maybe it’ll pick up by Friday morning.”
“Mmm, I hope so.” I tried to sound bored as I rang him up and contained the excitement that rocketed around inside me.
I left the house as if I was going to work and called in sick. Peter was waiting for me when I got to the barn. His wife and mother-in-law had gone to the hospital for a bunch of tests all day, so we hiked into the middle of their property, away from any roads or houses or outbuildings, where a giant oak tree marked the intersection of four fields. We’d both come prepared this time. I brought a quilt and the book he’d given me for Christmas and he brought a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. He flipped through the book and read some lines aloud while we picked at the cheese and crackers and sipped pinot noir from Dixie cups. I’d never had wine outside of church before and even though it tasted dry and coppery, I didn’t mind. I’d rather drink wine with Peter than all the beer in the world with Tommy.
After a while I laid my head in his lap while he leaned against the tree trunk, read, and stroked my hair. I listened more to the tone of his voice than the actual words. I started to feel like a cat, like I wanted to rub my head against his thigh and stretch and roll in the warmth of the sun. Maybe the wine was getting to me.
“So he spends his entire worthless life searching for V.” Peter flipped the book shut and set it aside.
Usually I loved listening to him talk about books, to hear that crisp analytical tone in his voice as he lectured the class, but the more he’d read of this one, the more depressed he sounded, especially about that weird stalker character. I asked him who V was, to change his focus, and he perked up a little.
“That’s the unsolvable mystery, the unknowable question. Pynchon would never be so prosaic as to attempt to answer it.”
I rubbed my cheek against his pant leg. “Well, I didn’t ask Pynchon. I asked you.”
He was quiet for a minute while his fingers continued to sift through my hair, starting at my scalp and smoothing the strands over his thigh and down to the ground. It was hypnotic, addictive. I wanted to lie in the sun and feel him stroking my hair forever. My eyes drifted closed.
“I should say that I’m not that prosaic either, but it’s irresistible. She haunts you as you read, like a ghost drawing you through each page.” He paused again, hesitating. “When I gave it to you I thought V was you, in about fifty years.”
I laughed. “And you’re the man searching for me?”
“I don’t know. Probably. It doesn’t matter who I am. It’s about you, who you are. I still don’t even know what to call you. All your names. All your identities.”
“It’s just acting, Peter.”
“No, it’s not. A person’s actions dictate who they are. You can’t be a Democrat if you vote Republican. You can’t call yourself a vegetarian if you eat steak. And your actions, they don’t add up to one single person. I watch you, Hattie. You gossip with Portia before class, egging on all her ridiculous ideas, feeding her one bullshit line after another. You let Tommy paw you in the middle of the cafeteria while you blush and giggle. You play teacher’s pet with every single staff member I’ve talked with and they all think you’re going to major in their field. And I can’t find one hint that any of it bothers you. You say you’re just acting, but you’re fracturing yourself into a thousand pieces, and every time I see another piece, you’re gone again. You turn into someone else, a crowd of someone elses, and it makes me wonder if there’s any such thing as Hattie Hoffman. I could have hallucinated this whole affair.”
He laughed bitterly. With my eyes still closed, I reached a hand up and drew my finger along the inseam of his pants until I reached the center.
“Do you think you’re hallucinating right now?” I brushed my fingers back and forth until I felt his body respond.
“Hattie ...” His voice sounded strangled.
“Would you like to hallucinate some more?” I reached for his pants buttons, and he grabbed my hand.
“Stop it.”
I sat up, annoyed. If I had done that to Tommy, he would have forgotten his own name, let alone any question he might have had about mine.
“What’s your problem, Peter? Why did you even want to see me today?” I demanded.
“You like it, don’t you? You like manipulating people. Does it make you happy to have Tommy panting after you? To have Portia mimicking you like some brainless clone?”
“No. That’s not how it is.”
“The first time I met you, you told me you drop an alias whenever it stops being fun. Do you have fun knowing what you’ve turned me into? I loathe myself every time I think about us.”
