By Matthew Wood
Carol-Ann was watching the rain run down the window: the paths it cut, the way streaks ran together. The shifting mosaic of it. She held a coffee mug in her left hand, a towel in her right, slowly turning the mug, polishing away the printed logo. Her head throbbed.
Then she stopped and looked down. It said only Zion in a purple font across the top. The mountains were faint, sun-bleached. Forty days and forty nights, she remembered. She set it on the drying mat on the counter and went out.
In the bedroom, she stood in front of the vanity, examining herself. She looked at the fine lines that spidered across her face, like fractures in glass. The mottled texture of her skin around it. She pulled it back so it was tight against her skull. Garish.
Make-up. She brushed over the lines. She created a smoothness that went over the mottle. Mascara and foundation and a hint of eyeshadow. Then she brushed her hair back, sparse channels appearing like tunnels of light.
She went to the closet and stood for a long time, looking at her clothing, touching the materials, holding each piece lightly in her hand. A dress covered in lilies, a dark blue silk against white petals. She removed it from the hanger and held it out in front of her then stepped out of the white fleece of her robe and into it, pulling the zipper up behind her with her arm folded back over her shoulder. She looked at herself in the glass again, passing into the hall.
In the living room, she sat on the sofa. She thought of eating something but could not fix anything specific in her head. There was an itemized list of the contents of the cabinet and refrigerator accumulating in her head. Things that inspired nothing in her because she wasn’t hungry, but only felt like she should eat. That it was something she had to do.
No, there were errands to run today. Things to keep the house running. Food, toiletries, cleaning solvents. The fabric of everyday living. Things bought every week, used, and discarded. Things that came into the house full and left empty, the gleaming wrappers deflated, husklike. She would go through the aisles of the grocery store, taking the same things from the shelves. The pews of day-to-day living.
She was not ready. The rain was coming down too hard. It pelted on the windowpanes, filling the room with its impact. As if it were trying to break in. Ratatat. This is the onslaught waiting for you.
She turned on the television. A woman almost perfectly preserved. A man in the latter half of life, greys accumulating in his hair. Side by side, sitting at the desk there, their voices steady as the dawn. Laughter tumbling like whitewash. Carol-Ann was waiting for the weather. She needed to know when the rain would let up, when it would stop beating.
And now the phone was ringing way off in the kitchen. Trilling ceaselessly. She knew she could not answer it. There was a quantity of energy required to rise and walk to it and speak to whomever was on the other side. A vitality she could not find in herself. Today, she had dressed and done her makeup. Yes, she had done that much. She was preparing for the errands she must run to keep the house functional. Things enumerated in her wifely duties.
She turned the volume up on the television. The man’s booming voice filled the room. He was telling Carol-Ann about the flooding in the valley. He was laughing. Thank God the drought’s over, he was saying. He jigged a little when he laughed, still smiling when he turned it over to weather.
And the inky stains across the screen. The weatherman was gesturing at the smears of blue spread over the landscape. At the serpentine crawl from the north. We’re in for another few days of rain, he was saying. Several inches are coming our way. Look out. Even if there was some clarity later today.
A little late. She might have to brave the rain. Brave the drivers in the rain. There were things she needed out there, in that world of rain and flooding. Things she needed for the routine, the day-to-day surviving.
She thought about them, enumerating again as she stood and walked to the sliding glass door. There were puddles rising out of the soil in the backyard. Murky pools punctured with rain drops, ripples passing fast through the surface, the mirrored sky morphing rapidly. Shimmers of grey. She went back to the bedroom.
And back to the closet to take a raincoat, slipping it over her shoulder, pulling the bunched sleeves down as she walked toward the foyer.
Here she fastened the coat and drew up the hood. She took her keys from the dish beside the door and watched the rain beat on the inlayed glass. Then a figure was appearing there that gave her pause. She swung the door back.
His face was boyish. This was what she first noticed. His eyes were big and green, rising slowly up to her, set behind a round, shallow nose. He didn’t say anything for a moment but only looked at her. He cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Pastor John.”
She said, “You should try the church.” The rain was coming sideways in the wind behind him.
“He’s not there today,” the boy said, “I went there first. They told me to look here.”
“He’s not here. I don’t know where he is,” she said.
There was a tension in his expression. He said, “Can I wait here? I need to talk to him.”
“I’m just heading out,” she said, taking a step almost out of the house.
“In this rain?” the boy said, “You should wait until it eases up. It’s coming down hard out here.”
“I have errands to run. Things to buy.”
“They’re calling it an atmospheric river,” he said.
“Yet life goes on,” Carol-Ann said.
The boy nodded. “It’s important that I talk to him,” he said.
“He’ll be home this evening. You can come back then,” said Carol-Ann. She shut the door behind her, locking it just as he moved out of her way to allow her passing. Then, stepping out from the patio, she broke into a trot, feeling the weight of the rain, the snare buzz of it on her coat. She left him standing on the porch.
In the car, she shook the water from her. Her heart was beating hard in her chest, as if she had done something transgressive. A rollicking rhythm that remained as she looked in the rearview and saw that her makeup was starting to run and needed to be touched up with the tips of her fingers.
When she had finished, she looked back out to the rain, watching the boy. He walked out from under the porch and moved unhurriedly toward his car, taking long strides and sinking down. He wiped his face with his thin hands.
She was waiting for him to leave. She watched him for maybe ten minutes and expected him to start the car at any moment. He didn’t move. He stared through the windshield with his hands on the wheel. Finally, she started her own car and pulled out of the driveway, passing slowly by him, watching him for response. He did not look at her.
As she drove, the rain beat percussively on the roof, a syncopation. She got to the end of the block and hooked a right. Then another. The sky was blurred and heavy before her, swollen. There was a wisp of anxiety.
When she came back, she found him still sitting. She pulled back into her driveway and was still for a moment. She was looking at him in the rearview, watching his nonbeing. Then, somehow, she found herself trotting over to him through the whipping rain. She knocked on his window and he started, rolling the glass pane down with a manual crank. He looked at her with a dim warmth.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“I’m waiting,” said the boy.
“Why are you waiting here?” she clarified.
But he said nothing. The rain was accumulating on her face. Her makeup was ruined.
“Can you wait somewhere else?” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t miss him. I apologize.”
Carol-Ann looked back at the house and then at the boy. Her face was melting off. “You’re making me uncomfortable,” she said, “Being outside of my house and all.”
He backed away from the rain coming into the car. “I apologize,” he said, “I don’t mean any harm. I just need to talk to him.”
She knew what it was now. She had seen them come through before. They were looking for the lord, for guidance out of whatever spiritual crisis they were facing. She lifted her hands from the window frame. “Come wait inside,” she said, sighing, “We shouldn’t be out in this.”
He nodded and rolled up the window. As he stepped out, his long body seemed to unfurl, whipping up to his full height. She started to trot, turning around to find him walking measuredly behind her, taking one step to two of hers until they reached the porch. She fumbled with her keys at the door.
Inside, she shed her coat and boots in the foyer and told him to stay put. He looked around the house with a placid expression as she went off. A distinct immobility that lasted until she returned with a towel. He took it as if he did not understand its usage.
“Dry off a little,” she said, watching him work a rosiness into his complexion, a pink glow. He rubbed his hair and his face and his arms and finally smiled at her, placatingly looking down at her, taking in her expression.
“Not much we can do about the clothes,” she said. She looked at the sagging material clinging to his body and put a finger up and went out. In the bedroom, she looked through the dresser, through the fastidiously folded clothes, through the hanging garments in the closet, trying to find something that might work. Finally, she resignedly picked her robe up off the ground, feeling almost ashamed.
On the way out, by instinct, she looked in the mirror, at the streaks of makeup winding down from her eyes once again. Little black trails. She wiped them away, hard with her thumbs, revealing herself again. A grim, forced smile.
“Here, put this on and bring me your clothes,” she said when she returned, holding the robe out.
He looked at it and then at her and went off toward the bathroom. She waited in the foyer until he returned with his clothes in a wad in his hand. He wouldn’t look at her as she took them and she stood for a moment as if imploring him to look at her. When he wouldn’t, she went off and dropped them into the dryer and started it, finding him still standing at the edge of the living room when she came back.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked, “Or tea?”
He looked at her for a long time, his lank form absurdly framed by the robe. He said, “Coffee would be nice.”
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, motioning vaguely toward the couch.
In the kitchen, she poured fresh grounds into the filter and started the machine. She found herself staring at the Zion mug again while the coffee brewed, looking at the faded print, then back through the window at the onslaught of rain. When the machine was finished, she poured him a cup and then one of her own, placing them on saucers which she carried out to the living room on a tray with cream and sugar.
Still, he wasn’t quite looking at her when she returned. He was looking into some kind of middle space between the couch and sliding glass door. She was staring at him. She was looking at the almost imperceptible concave of his chest, the pallor of him. The way his mousy hair seemed to curl just over the precipice of his forehead, faintly reminiscent of Roman soldiers. She cleared her throat in a delicate way.
“So what did you need to speak to John about?” she asked, looking down into the coffee where she poured the cream. Then, off-handedly: “Not to pry.”
He leaned forward and took the saucer and the cup and lightly blew away trails of steam. He took a hesitant sip. He said, “It’s personal. You understand. I don’t mean to be rude. That’s the last thing I would want.”
“Not rude,” she said with a conciliatory smile, “Some things are personal. Are you in any trouble?”
“No, not yet.” He was holding the saucer and cup at his chest.
“You have a little girlfriend?” she asked, “She’s giving you trouble? You’re coming to some critical junctures?”
He blew again at the steam. “I don’t mean to be rude. It’s personal. You understand.”
“You’re sitting in my robe,” she said, “You can give me a little glimpse.”
He didn’t say anything for a while. She watched him straightening up on the couch, a strange contemplative look. She crossed a leg over the other.
“Sometimes these things happen,” she said, “Relationships are often unpretty. You think you know someone, then you don’t. There’s a strange inversion happening all of a sudden.”
He didn’t say anything so she stood and moved toward the kitchen. She passed onto the tiled floors and was motionless in front of the fridge. After a minute, she reached up to the cabinet and took down a clear bottle, pouring into a wide-mouthed glass.
“How old are you?” she called. Still no response. She waited, but heard nothing, so she went to the edge of the kitchen and looked at him. “How old are you?” she asked again.
“Nineteen,” he said, “Twenty next month.”
She nodded then said, “Jesus” and shook her head. She took a sip from the glass. “Would you like more coffee?”
He shook his head no.
“How about a drink?” she asked, watching the bloom of his face.
“I’d better not,” he said, “The coffee is fine. I needed something warm.”
She shrugged and moved back to the kitchen, taking the glass in her hand. There, she took a longer drink, feeling the sting of it spreading through her chest and then into the pit of her stomach. A robust feeling.
Back in the living room, she sat across from him again. She set her glass on the side table. She crossed her legs, bobbing her foot up and down in a slipshod rhythm, outside of time.
“What time does the pastor get back?” he said.
She gave him a look full of diversion, fleeting things. “It varies,” she said, “It depends on his work. It always depends on the work. He used to come home at 5:30 every night. Without fail. Then the work somehow changed. What’s your name, I meant to ask.”
“Stephen,” he said, pausing for a moment, “And yours?”
“Carol-Ann,” she said, “A strange aberration of a name. Not quite Caroline, but usually pronounced that way. I’m always telling people about the hyphen. Like there’s a little dash in it, heads up.”
He nodded now, draining the mug, holding it above the saucer. Finally, he set it back down and leaned forward to place it on the table. He pulled the lapels of the robe closed a bit, crossing his arms.
“Another cup of coffee, Stephen?”
He looked at the cup and then at her. His green eyes seemed almost wet. “Okay, I can do that. Thank you.”
She rose, taking the cup and saucer with her. She stood at the coffee maker again and poured the coffee. Then she poured a little from the clear bottle into the cup and took a swig from the bottle. She looked out the window at the dusting of mist.
When she returned, he was looking at his watch disinterestedly. There was something sharp and angular to him now, the cherry fading from his face, his skin waxen and pale. A quality that irritated her. She handed him his coffee and went to the side table to turn on the stereo, rolling the dial until she found something she liked. Something mid-tempo, from some distant place in the past, some place murky in memory. She was shuffling her shoulders, moving rhythmically in isolation, just like she used to.
She said, “Do you dance, Stephen?”
He took a sip of coffee and made a bitter face. He shook his head no.
She danced a step toward him, then two. “Your little girlfriend never asked you to dance?”
“I think your coffee went bad or something,” he said, looking down into the cup.
But she was already swaying in front of him. “Do you know how to dance?” she asked, looking out across the room.
“No, ma’am,” said Stephen.
“No, ma’am,” she sneered. “Stand up. I’ll show you how to dance.”
“No, thank you,” he said.
But she was already extending her arms to him, her hands fluttering. Something was racing in her, a sail caught in the wind, pulling her along to cut paths through the water, the wake pushing out from her. “Come on, don’t be shy,” she said, half-laughing, “Men need to know how to dance. It’s imperative.”
He looked down at her hands, at her imploring face. He rose, unfolding again.
“There we go,” she said, “That’s right. That’s good. Just move your feet with mine. Hold me a little closer, don’t be shy,” she said. Her face was almost up against his chest, the pale flesh, the structureless concave of it, as she closed her eyes and swayed and got a little carried away now, bobbing along closer to him even as he held his distance and touched her as if she were a soiled napkin, grasping her shoulders with hands that just barely made contact, which barely confirmed her as something animate and concrete at all.
“No, no,” she said, “This is important. A woman wants to see you lead the way. A woman wants to feel that you are in control, here.” She put her face into the fleece of the robe, not touching his skin, not even thinking of him because in her head it was total blackness, an impossible screen of night, a darkened cave of nonbeing and nothingness that turned beneath her, twisting and swirling in ways that reminded her of those scenes in 70s television that were meant to approximate intoxication. She was pushing into him, letting him almost carry her weight along, letting him be a figure of support and guidance and direction.
“Carol-Ann, I’m uncomfortable,” he said, “This feels improper.” His voice was callous and rough and grained. “I’d really like to stop now.”
But she only shook her head violently, dizzyingly. “There’s nothing wrong with dancing. This is something young men should know. Your girlfriend will be happy to see this, that you know how to do this. Don’t be shy.” She still wasn’t looking up at him, she wasn’t even seeing him as human, as a figure of beating heart and thoughts that tumbled into existence.
“I think I’d like to stop. I’d like my clothes,” he said.
And abruptly, she stopped. She looked up into his boyish face. She said, “What’s your girlfriend’s name, Stephen?”
But he did not look at her. He looked out to the backyard, at the impressionistic dotting on the sliding glass door. “I’d like my clothes,” he said.
And she took a step back, gazing at him. “You don’t have to go,” she said. “He won’t be home for a long time. Maybe you know why.” She threw her hands up. “Everybody knows. I see it when I go out there.” She turned from him, looking out at the backyard where the mist was starting to seem more like fog. Like something pillowy to burst through or burn off. She looked back at him. She saw that his eyes were red-rimmed, bleary. “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
But he was already walking out into the rain.
About the Author:
Matthew Wood is a cum laude graduate of CSULB’s creative writing program. He has had fiction published in Chapter House, carte blanche, Variant Literature, and Sinking City, among others. For his publication in The Myriad, he was awarded the Tom Lew Prize for Fiction