Treading

My ideal lover would share qualities with a bed I owned at sixteen; be soft, with firm support. Know how to coddle without asking for more. And never try to flatter me for some cheap affection.

Don't take your bed for granted; this is the best advice I can give. Your bed will never look down its nose at you and tell you what a shameful, no-good piece of trash you really are.

"Ready to get up yet?"

My girlfriend hangs around constantly, I know that when I climbed into this bed the world stopped for her. Loggerhead to the top of the bed, I see her; a candy-coated Valentine of a woman. Sainted, perfect, blonde, tanned, doe-eyed. I'm unfit to drink her bathwater.

She touches my forehead, a dusting of benevolence, "You don't have a fever." She frowns, a moue of misunderstanding.

"I'm not sick."

She smiles, cheerful all at once, "Lita, the fireworks are going off tonight. Remember what Matt said, that we can see them over the Bayou?"

"I remember what Matt said," I say, although my voice is not my own.
She freezes completely, still luminous as a sugared icicle. "I'm..going to market," She says, then with more strength, "We need beer."

I move for the first time in that week when I hear the front door slam closed.

***

"There will be other babies," She told me.
"I wanted her," I had said.
"But it wasn't supposed to happen," She unpinned the hem of her skirt and shook loose her hair, "You can't control fate."
"You call an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale 'fate'?"
"I have to. If I keep thinking about it, I'll go crazy." She looked up at me, "What can I do, Lee? Tell me what I should do.."

****

A bathroom mirror tells me what I can always count on; I'm still an average, plain woman. I tug a brush through my hair, grunting at the snarls and tangles that make themselves known against its thick bristles. My eyes are red and runny, something that won't be helped; I brush my teeth and change in the bedroom.
After taking one last look at myself in the mirror, I go downstairs, taking a little portable radio with me and sitting on the porch.

Alone with the trees, I take a moment to laugh at the allegation of my being beautiful. My supposed beauty is some sort of myth that Vince made up to market me. But I know I'm not beautiful. Trish, she's beautiful. The other girls are, too, but me? Nah.

They're confusing it with the fact that I'm frequently near-nude, something that could be replicated by any pretty little underweight girl in line at a Dunkin' Doughnuts, as far as Vince is concerned. They confuse the visually pleasing with the demi-erotic.

He doesn't know that I'm aware of how replaceable I am, but I know. I've seen the way women are discarded in this company; if you ever get even a little bit more famous than your character, the magic's over and you're unemployed. To Vince, asking for a raise is comparable to cheating on him; signing a contract is like marrying into the Amish, where everything is controlled by the husband.

Oh, my fans think I'm forever. But they thought Sable and Sunny were forever, didn't they? Come on, open up your eyes and look at how far Tammy has fallen. You think I won't get desperate enough, hungry enough?

We all want to survive. This is one of the ways I do it.

Don't think I don't see the purposeful lust in the eyes of the masses. I'm aware that some portion of the populace would go into a frenzy of orgasam if they could see me fuck my girlfriend just once. I can tell lust from joy. And no, I don't like having my tits grabbed, thank you.

"You think someone's gonna miss me when I'm gone?"
Jeff's in one of his "Reassure me" moods. I'm not playing around.
"No."
"WHAT?!" his eyes fill up with tears, the corners of his mouth tremble, and he runs off to find Matt, a hopeless quest, considering how tightly he's wrapped around Mark now.
I feel malicious, tired of him, tired of the world, shouting after him, "NONE of us are gonna be missed, Jeff. You know who'll care? Your family, and your friends. Maybe your fans, if you die young. But they're not going to sit on your grave all day and night."
"STOP SAYING THAT!" he's hysterical, but I'm disgusted with his neediness.

"Face it!" I hiss, pinning him against the wall, "They'll mourn a little, say how sorry they are, send off their condolences, but in the end they just stuff you in a hole and you'll just be another dead thing! And the world goes on and everyone pretends that you never existed."

Matt steps between us, stinking of Mark's cologne. Jeff glares at me through his tears, "Why the fuck don't you get over Misha and stop torturing everyone else?" Matt snaps, protecting baby bro. Regret pains his face a minute later, but it was too late.

I flew at him, my fists thudding duly into his flesh, my mouth an open "o" of rage. By now we've gathered a crowd and I see their feet by my head as my hands fasten onto Matt's collarbone, squeezing, making his eyes bug out. But he won't fight back.

I feel hands, nails, and I'm hoisted away. Trish's haunted eyes hold mine. I know that we're in this together, but I can't tell her anything. Her nails shatter, sticking into my skin.

Shane McMahon breaks into my thoughts and says, with as much sincerity as he can muster, "I think you need to go home."

****

Trish comes home at nine o'clock at night, carrying two wrinkled grocery bags and takeout. She sways in sneakers, and when we kiss I taste beer on her tongue.

She collapses between my legs, lying her head on my breast, facing away from the swamps. She doesn't notice when the sky blows up with fireworks.

We don't talk at all.

I can feel the world rocking apart beneath me. There's nothing I can do.

Her solemn little face and grave eyes give regard and muffle concern. She is perfectly silent while we talk to one of the caregivers in the orphanage about her charge.

There is no space for privacy in a place like this. Children are consigned four at a time to one crib, which line the walls and are interspersed with beds at the end of the room. The walls are a brainless white, the windows dulled over with an early-morning frost.

Trish smiles down at her, "Would you like to come home with us?" She asks, her mastery of the language flawless.

The girl remains silent, watching the silvery woman who sat beside her, "Home?", she asked (I could understand but not speak the language, some fissure in my brain stopping a complete mastery).

"Home," Trish smiled nervously, "Home is Florida, in the United States."

She seemed to have heard of this place. Maybe it was a myth to her, something whispered among the children at bedtime. Perhaps some couple had promised to take her there, only to fly back and never return.

She played with the folded sleeve of Trish's suit coat. "Will you buy me a jump rope?"

I knew that this was a way of assurance for her; material possession meant security; there were no possessions for her here, no love, no guarantee.

Trish's lips quivered, "We'll buy you anything you need."

She smiled, happy, "Would you like to see my tree?"

We trekked outside; for the first time, Misha in a coat that Trish had bought, guileless, behaves as though this is the twentieth and not the second time we've ever seen her in her life.

She reaches up, grabbing and pulling herself up onto an emaciated, stick-figure thin branch in the yard's shabby play area, "I come here to dream," She tells us.

"Can you tell her?" I ask, "That I had a tree like this when I was little?"

Trish translates for me, and Misha grins, offering me her arms. I shake my head, and she frowns. Sighing, I hoist myself up onto a thicker branch, feeling graceless.

Looking down at my girlfriend, who cannot stop smiling, I realize that everything is set out before us just the way it should be, at last. We will adopt Misha, and she will be our daughter. Trish will get to grow the garden she always wanted, and I can have hours to read and run. I'll become the woman's champion again, she'll manage a world champion. We'll never have to worry about money again.

At that moment I was my most secure, sharing a secret with my soon-to-be daughter and woman. Part of me I let stay there, a teddy bear to comfort Misha, a promise we would return.

When they found her in the rubble after the quake, she was clutching my bear. We told them to bury her with it, a promise that we would be with her.

Part of us always will be.

The End