In a bedroom at my high school friend Debbie’s house, Debbie and her boyfriend are making out on one twin bed and Bob C. (an old boyfriend of mine from slightly after my friendship with Debbie ended) and I are making out on the other. We are all eighteen or so. We are doing this according to the house rules, but they are not rules set down by Debbie’s parents; we don’t know where they came from–nor do we question them. One rule states that at some point we have to change partners for a while. This happens without me or Debbie’s boyfriend really noticing it. The next thing I’m aware of is sitting propped up on the bed in a long spaghetti-strap white cotton nightgown. Bob looks at me hungrily as he gets his white tailored shirt off as fast as he can; I know he likes the way one gown strap falls off my shoulder. “At last, it’s my turn!” he says, diving onto the bed.
After a little more (and heavier) necking, I see Bob’s watch in the light of my dorm room bureau mirror. It’s one A.M. “I promised Mom I’d get home by now,” I tell the other three. Debbie is having a party soon and I’ve been asking her the date all evening, but she hasn’t been sure. We’re standing in her living room now, and she says, “(Name?) is importing dressers, and I’m thinking of buying one before the party.” In my mind’s eye I can see an antique white chest of drawers with gilded crevices, frail-looking palm trees painted on its flat surfaces. “Where will you put it?” I ask, looking around at the already-full living room. Debbie waves her arms around vaguely, finally pointing through a set of French doors to the adjoining family room. “In there.” “Do you have a date for the party yet?” I ask. “Next Friday,” she replies.
And now
I’m sitting at a table opposite a very cute and precocious three-year-old boy and his father. A Christmas tree stands behind them and to their left against a wall. The little boy unwraps a gift. It’s a small painted wooden toy. He turns it over in his hands, admiring it. His father says, “We’ll put that on the tree.” The little boy agrees, “OK.” I’m impressed by his ability to postpone playing with the toy. This would not happen at our house.
And now
I’m trying to leave a house at night, but someone has turned into a big orange tabby cat and I have to take it with me in the car. I put it into the back seat of my (Karman Ghia?) but the bright dome light reveals that the passenger door is open; the cat quickly slips out and runs back to the house. I close the passenger door and go to get the cat again.
In the front hallway I see that the cat has camouflaged itself as a cardboard standup poster. Hot pink rings surround a black circle, in the center of which is printed a pair of neon-green eyeglasses. It’s the eyeglasses that give it away. The cat’s owner, a middle-aged woman, helps me catch it.
And now
Husband Peter and I are in an open-topped elevator car that glides up an incline at an angle rather than going straight up or down. The interior of the car is like a restaurant booth surrounded by a low metal wall. The shaft we move through is pale yellow and well lit, broken from time to time by dark doorways that lead off into shopping arcades. Our elevator operator is a balding Leslie Nielsen, and he sits opposite Peter on the mustard-colored vinyl seat. Is the tabby with us? A bird that belongs to us is; sometimes it’s in a cage, but it has just flown over Nielsen and pooped on his head. Another bird, coming from somewhere else, does the same. We smile apologetically as Nielsen raises his hand to his head, coming away with a smear of white on his fingertips.
*****
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