56. MAGDALEN
56
MAGDALEN
The wedding comes. Two weeks without exchanging a smile, let alone a word with Theo. Marta drops off my dress. It’s pale green, she says, to match my eyes.
Oxford mails the course catalogue for next semester. Am I excited to go back? Excited to be alone, yes. To stay in the bathroom for two hours and not have anyone knock on the door. I’m excited to drink heavily without someone asking if I’m okay.
I consider dying on Monday. Anika pats my shoulder when I start crying at the tennis club. I told her that things just didn’t work with Theo and she didn’t probe me for more, probably suspecting that it would end quickly. I drink four beers on Wednesday. When I see Theo at the cafe in Torino on Friday with Dante and two other guys, he just stares at me through the glass. No half smile, no frown, nothing. I feel like I’m at the zoo, watching Theo through this clear cage between us. I’m not sure which one of us is the animal but I suspect it’s me. Except, I realize I crave entrapment. I desire confinement. So we’d be forced to coexist. Surrounded only by the strong smell of freshly ground coffee and his beautiful mind.
I want to forget that I know what he knows and curl around him tightly until we can both push out this memory. I stare back through the window and continue walking down the street.
On the day of the wedding, my mother ignores me and I spit at her heels when she turns around. She cries when Lucia comes down the stairs into the kitchen, wearing a robe, holding the silky white dress in her hands. Lucia’s gaze goes past my mother and she smiles at me. She looks radiant. I smile back. My mother yells for my father to get the camera and my mind spins.
I look down to see I’m standing in the same spot my mother hit me all those years ago. How funny. Should I remind her about that? Remind her how she used to poke fun at me for being shy around boys. When she rolled her eyes because I said I was scared to kiss Romeo on stage. I rush to the bathroom, pretending to need my lip gloss, and close the door behind me. My fingers curl around the basin. Just breathe . My father’s footsteps, in his brand-new shoes, click loudly against the tile of the kitchen floor.
The medicine cabinet is slightly open so I peer inside. An expensive jar of face cream, two hair ties with a loose piece of hair tangled around them, and an eyebrow razor. When I reach inside to pick up the eyebrow razor, the base of the cabinet is sticky with dried-up toothpaste and I grimace. My mother is the worst cleaner in the world. She only pays attention to the surface. I hold the razor out and look at the edge of it, where the metal meets the plastic holder. It’s beginning to rust. She must run it under the water and put it directly back in the cabinet.
It’s still difficult to breathe, so I reach for something to distract myself, spotting the jar of expensive face cream tucked in the cabinet. I unscrew the lid, staring into the white pillowy cream. I remember Theo’s words and I spit inside it.