Two girls drinking
Amanda smirked and climbed off of me slowly. She began to whistle, which I didn’t remember she could do. She wandered around the room for a few seconds, straightening pillows. All while the baby cried. Then she disappeared into the bedroom, leaving the door open as it scratched on the carpet. I heard her make baby conversation and then the screaming turned off like a switch. “That’s a good girl,” Amanda drawled at a distance. “Yes, you are, a good thirsty girl.”
I put my head back and stared at her cracking Racine ceiling. I folded my hands on my chest and shut my eyes. “Everything all right in there?” I called out after a while.
After a while she called back, “Chugging along. Will you bring me a beer?”
This struck terror into my heart. Amanda drinking a beer. While baby Krista drank Amanda. Like everything else at that moment, it was wrong. I approached the kitchenette. The refrigerator was a nexus of life’s disappointing details. I looked at the attached pathetic snapshot of Amanda, tiny baby, and probable husband, in an outdoor context. He was balding and had the distinct beginnings of jowls. He looked older than her, but maybe wasn’t. Worst of all, he was wearing a polo shirt. At least it was no one I knew. The baby was staring at the ground.
Under the photo was a calendar with pediatric appointments slashing across dates. I closed my eyes and watched the refrigerator’s innocent surface populate with report cards, finger paints, and amusingly-shaped magnets. I opened the refrigerator door and stood there letting the cool air bathe my face. There were jumbles of plastic baby bottles in there, color-coded and ready to be packed, rolling up against a microwave-safe container of half-eaten Kraft Dinner, that icon of the apartment-dweller who has lost all self-respect. It reminded me of home. I got out a bottle of beer. I considered smashing it and slitting my wrists. I found and opener and opened it instead.
I went into the bedroom, holding the beer ahead of me with the other hand over my eyes. “Want me to throw it to you?”
“How about bring it to me, and with your eyes open so you don’t knock into shit.”
“I feel that this is a private moment between Madonna and child.”
“Well,” she said, “as a recovering Lutheran I can tell you we’re already sinners so you might as well sit down.” I peeked through my fingers. “Can I have my beer?” she asked. I took the hand away from my face and hesitated. I took a good look at her sitting there with her blissed-out daughter. “Give me a second,” I said, “let’s see how it works without props first.”
She was that vision of contemporary motherhood: sweatshirt over the feeding bra, clunky glasses because there’s no time for contacts in the morning. Apparently she wore them for baby-range vision. The sweatshirt was rolled up under her chin and that left aileron had to flap up as sure as the sun would eventually stop rising; probably, at the rate things were going, tomorrow. “Do you know what I’ve been doing since we last saw each other?” I asked her.
She looked like she was about to say something sharp, then simply shook her head. I pressed on.
“Thinking about, searching for, and looking at tits.”
She chortled. “I’ll bet.”
“And I don’t want to swell your head like you’ve swelled your tits, but I hope you realize the significance of your tits.”
She sighed, and so did her tits. “Yeah, well, that’s why boys like me, I guess.”
I stood there nodding at the wisdom of that.
She said, “How about can I have my fucking beer?”
I approached them carefully. “Sit down here,” she said, patting the bed beside her. Her other side. I sat down, handed her the beer. “You’re not having one?” she asked. I shook my head numbly. She toasted me. She hoisted the beer to her mouth, her head back. I looked at Krista’s wild expression. I moved back a bit to see them both better. “This is nuts,” I said out loud.
She wiped her mouth and handed me back the beer, which I set on the nightstand. “Answer this question yes or no,” she said. “Are you a perv?”
I considered that. “Well,” I began.
“I’m taking that as a yes. Okay. Hold on. Ouch.” She shifted Krista a bit in her arm. “Do you want to try some?”
“That’s nuts. Anyway, I don’t want to intrude.”
“C’mon, try it, sometimes I drink it myself.” She pushed up the other side of her bra. “You’ll grow up to be healthy. I mean, physically.” She grinned at me. I considered her face. She didn’t have a dirty expression, for once. She just wanted to share something she knew would interest me, like cutting out a newspaper article headlined “My tits”.
“Let me just say that I am not doing this,” I said, and bent down to complete the symmetry that Krista had started. Amanda put her arm around me, patting. “What a good boy,” she said. It tasted familiar.
TO BE CONTINUED….
by Jack, March 8, 2005 5:18 PM | More from Amanda | More from Drinking & Women
Within the Chronology
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Nice classification. I think next time maybe you should do a little research first. (Scroll down about 2/3 of the way to Vol. 5)