A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That by Lisa Glatt

Author:Lisa Glatt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

9.

Angela had offered to spend the night at my mother’s apartment so I wouldn’t wake up alone. Moments ago, she had slipped out of Ruby’s Room’s back door with my spare key, a naughty smile on her face, and the man with the dry lips on her arm. I told her to go ahead and take my room, that I’d sleep in my mother’s bed. Claire, after a ridiculous amount of reassurance, after I had promised to take a cab and ignore last call, finally called Lora to pick her up.

I left the booth and moved to the bar. Now, it was last call and I didn’t ignore it but ordered one more beer. It was one-thirty bar time, which gave me twenty minutes or so. Adam Anderson, whom I hadn’t seen in years and hadn’t missed, was sitting next to me, drinking a cup of coffee.

In the late eighties, when I was a student, he taught anatomy and biology part-time at the university. He wasn’t my instructor. I didn’t meet him in a class, but at a poetry reading—one of his own. Ten years ago it was his abortion I’d had when the two of us didn’t like each other enough to chance the combination of genes. Now he was full-time, a professor, he said. He was surprised that I was teaching on campus myself now, in the building right next to his—and even more surprised that I hadn’t stopped by to say hello.

“You work there, right across the way,” he said, grabbing his chin. “I remember when you—”

“Don’t remember, Adam,” I said.

He laughed, nervously. “Okay,” he said.

“It’s not a good idea,” I said.

“Well, anyway, you look good, Rachel. You’re a better-looking woman than you were a girl.”

“And that’s a compliment?”

“Yes,” he said. “You grew into your looks, your face.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“You grew into your features, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Features, huh?”

“That’s right. You look good, okay? I like the way you look now. You’ve grown up, and I—”

“We never liked each other,” I interrupted. I didn’t look at him, but stared straight ahead at the wall. It was blank, the wall, and I remembered when pictures of huge-breasted women hung on Ruby’s walls, creamy women, naked against black felt. I wondered who convinced the owner, Mac, to change his décor. I wondered if Mac had found someone, fallen in love. I wondered what Adam would do if I moved back to the booth, if he’d follow me or let me go.

“No,” he said, “maybe we didn’t.” He picked up his cocktail napkin and began ripping it into tiny pieces.

I stayed on the barstool. I shook my head. “I thought I liked you,” I said, “but I didn’t know anything.”

“You knew some things,” he said.

“I didn’t know—”

“Do you like me now?” he interrupted.

I finished my beer in one long swallow. “I don’t think so.”

“We’re different, that’s all.”

“No,” I said, feeling the beer, feeling bold. “You were a real fucker, that’s what it was.” I turned on the stool and faced him.

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