Chapter Two #3
And now here, in the dim light of the narrow aisle, her future unspooled before her—the larger apartment to which they’d eventually move, which Milton would select; the jobs Joan would work, the paychecks she’d earn, to be deposited straight into Milton’s outstretched palm.
The house they might buy, the midlife crisis she would tolerate (a new car, a girlfriend) once Milton reached a certain age and was disappointed in his imprint so far on the world.
Everything in her life would come from Milton.
There would be more Kennys, and here finally Joan forced herself to acknowledge that sex was indeed part of it, that Milton would shape its form and frequency to his desires, and it wasn’t so bad, because so far she did enjoy it, but now there was a rotting part of her she would have to endure, and slowly it would gnaw at her pleasure until there was none.
This was the choice she had made, and surely there were worse.
There were absolutely worse outcomes.
“No,” she said.
Milton blinked at her. His eyes were not so unlike Kenny’s, although they were larger, and Milton had smooth skin, which made all the difference.
What if Kenny had been born with big eyes and a few extra inches of height, Joan wondered—would he still be lurking in dark corners of video stores, waiting to watch other people have sex?
Kenny was observing them with open interest. Milton held her and pressed his mouth to her neck. “It’s okay,” he whispered. His breath hot against her skin.
There was none of the earlier pleasure of being held.
Now in Milton’s arms she felt suffocated, as if he were draining something vital.
But when Joan tried to pull loose, Milton only tightened his grip, until finally she yanked free.
She then shoved him hard, with both hands.
He stumbled backward, knocking into a shelf. He righted himself and came toward her.
Milton’s slap was lazy, easy. Afterward he let his hand dangle in the air with his thumb to his mouth. Joan felt the area of her cheek he’d struck. It was warm, and she pressed the tips of her fingers to it.
The two of them stared at each other. Joan thought she could discern in Milton’s round eyes an apology being assembled, and had the urge to impede him from actually saying sorry. It was fine, she’d likely reply if he did. She’d been trained her whole life to forgive a man like him.
She put up a hand. “I don’t want you to touch me.”
“Of course I can touch you.” Milton laughed. “I’m your husband!”
“You disgust me. Looking at you right now makes me sick.”
There was a sharp intake of breath. This time, when Milton hit her, it was harder—much harder.
Her head made a harsh sound as it bounced against the wall.
The pain followed a second later. Her ears rang, and in the distance Joan thought she could hear Kenny speak, but she wasn’t paying attention to Kenny any longer, she was directing all her faculties to her bag.
She could not see well—her vision was still a blur, her head filled with tiny stars—but she shoved her hand in her tote and grabbed the first item she touched, the protractor.
It was only after she’d swung that Joan realized what she held were actually the calipers, which had fallen out of their rubber casing.
The calipers, with two adjustable legs to measure area, were a precision product, made from carbon steel.
Given their height difference, Joan managed only to make contact with Milton’s chin and the bottom third of his cheek.
On the downward arc, the sharpened tips sliced through his shirt and into flesh, where they left a ribbon of crimson.
While the greatest damage was to his shoulder, it was Milton’s cheek that bled most.
Milton touched a hand to his face. His fingers came away slick with red. He screamed.
Joan wiped the calipers against her pants and dropped them into her bag. She then strode out of the store. She had nearly reached the parking lot by the deli before she realized she didn’t have the car keys—well, of course she didn’t, the Volkswagen was Milton’s.
Flummoxed, she stopped and set down her tote. She’d happened to stop at a row of parking meters and pondered her next move as she stared at the printed warnings of expiring time. Should she turn back? Or flee? Would the police arrest her? And then what would she do?
All her life, Joan would be one to face a difficult problem fully and plainly—this was a characteristic those close to her would by turns admire and loathe.
And so after another minute she picked up her tote and reversed her path; as she rounded the corner, she saw Milton outside the store with its owner.
Milton held a cloth to his cheek. Joan identified the makeshift bandage as Kenny’s windbreaker, though she didn’t see Kenny anywhere.
When Milton spotted her, he backed away. “Call the police!” he shouted.
The shop owner was still smoking. “Did you do this?” he asked Joan.
“Why are you asking her?” Milton hollered. “Of course she did! You think I would do this to myself?”
“I don’t get involved in domestic affairs,” the owner said.
“This isn’t a domestic affair, for God’s sake. She attacked me!” Milton’s chin had begun to drip; he pressed the other sleeve of the jacket to it.
“I only believe what I happen to see with my own eyes.”
Milton moaned and clutched his shoulder. “You don’t happen to be blind, do you? Because there’s blood all over!”
“I did attack him,” Joan said. She thought it only fair to be truthful; she was beginning to feel a little sorry for Milton.
The owner glared at the two of them, his eyes darting back and forth.
He went to Milton and examined his chin, evaluating the injury from multiple angles.
The owner, named Terrence, had once imagined he’d be a doctor—his uncle was a dentist in Sacramento and lived in a beautiful brick house.
Occasionally, as Terrence reshelved videos, he pretended he was a surgeon in a major hospital.
This patient will die unless his heart’s fixed, the nurses screamed.
Someone, hurry, call Dr. Terrence! He had not been pleased when Milton came rushing out of the store, interrupting his smoke break—in real life, his day-to-day life, in which he was the owner of a video store and a half acre of undeveloped land in North San Jose—Terrence did not like the sight of blood.
Terrence puffed his cigarette and then let it drop to the ground, stamping it under his foot. “I don’t want either of you to come back here,” he said angrily. “I have too much stress already.” He returned to the store, leaving Milton and Joan on the sidewalk.
Milton pointed at her. “You’re a crazy person.”
“No,” Joan said slowly.
“Of course you are. Who stabs someone over a video? What kind of civilized person conducts themselves this way?”
“I didn’t want Kenny there. I didn’t think the situation was appropriate.”
“You crazy bitch, you could have done a better job of telling me that. Civilized people use their words! Do you think any normal marriage functions like this?”
He was panting now, and as Joan regarded her new husband, she held her breath.
She tried to pretend the afternoon had never happened, that she still found him the most exciting, the most gentle, the most desirable person in the world.
But it didn’t work, not even a little; all she saw was the beige windbreaker splattered with blood.
On impulse, Joan bent and retrieved the owner’s discarded cigarette from the ground.
It lay flaccid in her fingers, its warmth already gone. “I want a divorce,” she said.