A ghost
Amanda met me at the door wearing a smirk which I instantly recognized. The rest of her was exactly the same also. It is amazing how people grow up, through agonizing circumstances, to become the same people they were before.
“Holy shit,” she announced. “It’s the ghost of Jack Task.”
“Clank, clank,” I said, rattling my chains.
She rushed to hug me and then we were inside her crappy apartment. It’s refreshing to be reminded that, despite their smugness, people who don’t live in Manhattan also have crappy apartments. They’re just cheaper.
Amanda led me into her living room, a distance of seven feet, and ten times she stole smiling glances at me over her shoulder. I was thinking about how hot she had been when we were in high school, and the grim reality that she was still hot now. That seemed unfair. Considering that my conversational skills had so far been displayed to her only with the word “clank”, which I had even repeated, I was thinking I had better bring it up a tone.
“Amanda,” I said definitively, “I wanted you then and I want you now.”
She laughed. “I’m glad we can be adult about this,” she said. “Some people, if they ran into an old flame, they’d feel old feelings.”
“We’re very mature. Also, the burden is not equal. I got ugly, so I think I’m safe from any undue attention. You are a fox. So it’s harder for me. But you got married. That’s a big step, for which I have respect.”
“It’s not such a big step. It’s what people do. In Racine, anyway. Sort of like in New York, you have trendy bars everyone has to go to in order to feel that they’re a productive member of society. We have families.”
I smiled at her pleasant put-down. “So, are you happy?”
“Sometimes. Same as when I wasn’t married, except now I have a husband.”
“And a kid.”
“That makes me happy.”
“I hope so.”
“The kid is actually exciting. I didn’t think I could be excited by anything anymore. She’s exciting, but in a new kind of way. It’s thrilling just to look at someone and feel so much.”
“I’ll have to try it sometime. I’ve heard good things.”
“It’s not a diet cookbook. It’s human reproduction.”
“Like I say, I’ve heard mostly raves.”
“You’re an asshole. I’m just saying it’s really a different, new feeling to—”
“And I’m saying I agree—”
She said, “Let me introduce you. Come on.” She went into the bedroom. There was a big bed and a small crib. The crib had a baby in it. “This is Krista,” Amanda said, picking her up.
“Hi, Krista,” I said. The baby looked at me like I was the craziest thing she had ever seen, but she didn’t have much experience, so I didn’t take it personally. Then her eyes drifted and her look didn’t change. Apparently everything just freaked her out.
Amanda put the baby back away and said, “You know, I used to look at you that way.”
“Drooling?”
“I’m talking about what I said. To just look at you and feel so much.”
“Oh, that. Please. What does that mean? We were kids. We didn’t know anything about each other. We didn’t even know who we were. Of course we were excited. Everything is a new experience when you’re stupid enough.”
Amanda frowned and led me back into the living room. It was sparsely furnished, as if they had just moved in, but I know they hadn’t. She said, “Maybe. But we weren’t anybody yet, that was the excitement, maybe. We could still be anything.”
“Yeah, you mean like when you pretended to be a naughty nurse and I was a soldier?”
We sat on the couch, which was, as in ideal Middle American residences, huge and vaguely chafing to the skin. The couch was the central focus of the home, because you could sit on it while eating dip. She said, “Shut up. Don’t ruin my secret memories.”
“I was there. They are also my—”
“In my memories, you were nicer. I remember it that we were nice to each other. Don’t make me doubt that by acting like a dick now.”
“Come on. We were phonies. I’m not saying it wasn’t exciting, that we didn’t like each other even, but we didn’t know what was going on. We were so stupid, and it disappointed us in each other, but pointing that out would have admitted it wasn’t perfect, and made us look like jerks.”
She jerked her head around like I’d hit her. Which I never did. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you saying you wished nothing had happened with me? You come back here to say this shit? That’s not how it’s done. We’re supposed to swap old stories that we were bored with even at the time. You’re supposed to make me feel wistful, and like I’m still the girl I always was, and then go away.”
“Hey, no, I—I mean, c’mon, you know how I felt. You could tell my mind was blown. You were the sexiest thing in pom-poms. I was in a perpetual faint from the lack of blood in my head. If I hadn’t been such an egotist, I couldn’t have believed my luck.”
“Jack, you won the goddamn pussy lottery. Admit it.”
I looked at Amanda closely. It was hard to separate out the woman sitting in front of me, slightly straggly hair and unbecoming sweatsuit — some live for beauty, and some for convenience — from the sexpot I had ruined when we were children, with tits up around her chin. Nonetheless, she looked the same to me, if she’d only slip into something less comfortable. I found myself thinking that she must have just put that on after cheerleading practice, and was on her way home to shower, while I watched with binoculars.
I told her, “You know, I don’t remember your being this funny when you were a kid.”
“I got funnier. You went to New York. You missed it.”
“I’m sorry. You should have warned me.”
“Would you have stayed?”
“No. You had dumped me, anyway.”
“I didn’t dump you. No one even knew we were seeing each other.”
“But you stopped. You stopped seeing me.”
“That was later. I’m allowed that. But before. Admit it. Who was dirtier than me? Who would have done all that with you?”
I realized this was not a rhetorical question. “Nobody,” I said, omitting those who did.
“I know you’re lying. I’m sure others did something. But not like me. It was all wasted on you. You would have been happy for a girl to let you touch her at all. You thought that was already dirty. But I was dirtier.”
“No one is trying to deny that you were the best of all possible girlfriends, and also, if you’re still blaming me for Tracy Jorgensen, nothing happened with her. I’m just saying, now that I’m in my twilight years, I realize how stupid I am, and I don’t think I’ve ever been any different, and I know the stupid things stupid people can do, the stupidest of which is not admitting it was stupid.”
She looked at me for a while with a scowl. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but just so long as you aren’t saying I wasn’t a hot lay, I don’t care. I think I was pretty damn good to you.”
“Always. You were perfect. You were a fantasy come true, three times a week. Is it rude to mention this?”
“It’d be rude to deny it.”
“Well, good, because I’m getting hard just thinking about it.”
“Don’t bother; I don’t have the uniform anymore. I couldn’t fit into it, anyway.”
“You probably could. It’s sort of awful that you look so good. Aren’t people supposed to get worse? I mean, you were fifteen years old. You were brand new. Look at me. I’m the walking wounded. How come you look better now?”
“I don’t know, because you had a long flight? Look at this, I have lines on my forehead.” She raised her eyebrows to put the line into sharper relief. She pulled at her scalp. “I have a grey hair.”
“Your grey hair is beautiful. Look, I’m not hitting on you, I’m just commenting on the phenomenon. I mean, tell me about the hot girls from high school. Who got fat? They all did, right?”
TO BE CONTINUED….
by Jack, March 5, 2005 6:44 PM | More from Amanda | More from Women
Within the Chronology
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Jack, stop dating women who just want to use your body to incarnate selfish fantasies. Be the avatar of yourself and give us nice gals a try!