I look at the clock. I need to finish my makeup soon or I’ll miss the train.
I look at my phone and review the text. Top bubble: “8:45 the usual place.” Appending bubble: “but *think* 7:00.” That’s the signal, to which I respond: “;-).”
Every couple of weeks I have this exchange with my husband. He thinks convincing myself that I am extremely behind schedule will electrify my thinking, pretty strongly implying that it isn’t as a rule of thumb.
“I don’t think you lack imagination,” he’d say.
“I wasn’t saying you said I had a lack of imagination, but now that you are saying it—”
“That’s not what I mean,” he’d say, putting his hands on his hips, conveying a kind of authority that works wonders on a judge. “What I mean is that you’re more visual. I’m more verbal.”
“Verbal is better?” We do a lot of emphasizing in this house.
“Not bet— … It just works for me. It’s natural. I don’t need to translate it.”
I’d say something in the neighborhood of a wisecrack, to which he’d always respond “That’s just what a visual person would say” or whatever. We’d stand there for a bit like kids at a middle school dance and then do something else. Finish dinner maybe.
I look into the vanity mirror. All the physical needs are met. My blush is healthy, my lipstick is subdued, and my mascara gives no clear indication of controllability or willingness to be controlled.
But the makeup is not done in some grander sense.
My husband isn’t wrong. I get by on aesthetic choices; I am an aesthete after all. I was a graphic designer out of college and now I am an art teacher at a charter school. My husband is a lawyer and gets by on stories. We live in the periphery of the city in a pre-war house the charms of which were remodeled away by the previous owner. He commutes into the city and I work a town over from ours. On occasion, meaning this one, he calls me in, though he does not expect me, exactly.
I lay my options out on the bed, things I’d acquired over time as a shrewd bargain bin and thrift shopper. A ratted blue t-shirt with the RC Cola logo on it: the universal symbol for not being like other girls. It’s about two sizes too large; I could probably wrap a belt around it or tuck it halfway in. A plaid-pattern farm dress that I have never ironed. A striped tank top that reminds me of my mom sitting in the sunroom on days off from school.
I take out a pair of blue-fading-to-grey Chuck Taylor high-tops I’ve had for years. They’re viable but I have to be careful with that shoe. The slightest mismatch could turn eternal youth into perpetual adolescence. My husband is hard to read on which he prefers and when.
I think of the ease that mannequins would bring to this process.
I don’t think my “lack of imagination” is entirely my fault. My husband expects certain things. Suspension of disbelief and poetic license are not things a lawyer would be comfortable with, in most cases anyway, and he is no exception. He likes things that are tangible to him while still abstract. Someone on the street that catches his eye. Someone from his past he regrets not having known better. He tells me these things, often at night when I’m reading an article or just about to fall asleep.
I look at the tank top and think college reunion. We went to his 15-year homecoming two years ago and he had a return car ride’s worth of possibilities.
I look at the t-shirt and think fresh startup intern. But that cuts too close to something I’ve already done. Maybe two things. Then I think sweet-natured barista, new to the city, hungry for experience, naïve but resourceful. I laugh.
My husband’s inspiration is sparked by his clients: a prodigal trust-fundee, a burnt-out auctioneer, a middling suspense author with “allegations,” a plastic surgeon with a subversive streak, a pharmaceuticals executive. It’s not that he does these poorly. His income depends on inhabiting their worlds at a level just short of intimate, slightly over in special cases. But I sometimes wish he’d work with different clients.
He once told me about this public defender acquaintance of his. “They call him ‘the UPS man,’” he told me, “because he practically delivered his clients to Rikers. It got to the point that they’d sing that ‘Mr. Postman’ song whenever he approached the metal detectors. He took it in stride, outwardly.” I suggested taking up that role sometime and his face froze into this pained expression as if a needle was slowly twisting between vertebrae. He doesn’t respond well to sadness.
I look at the farm dress. There was this girl in art school who would wear things like this, often under a thick, oversized cardigan, colored stockings, and combat boots. Her dirty blonde hair was long, thick, and poorly combed. Sometimes she’d double-braid it and it would look like steel wool. I think her name was Emily or Ellie. We had a painting class together; she liked light, sometimes pastel colors for paintings with religious imagery: hands clasped in prayer, figures in Christ poses silhouetted by the sun, crying virgins in an empty field. “I think she was in a cult out west, like the ones that live in silos or something,” my roommate said, “and she’s guilty about something.” My professor hated her style and themes and was especially cold in critiquing her. The only time I talked to her was outside after class when she asked me for a cigarette. As we smoked she asked me who my favorite painter was. I said Andrew Wyeth, which wasn’t true, I just painted vaguely like him and was struggling not to. “I like Munch,” she replied, “and some Renaissance stuff.” Later she tried painting with darker colors and more abstract themes which only made the professor’s critiques harsher. The last I saw her she was waitressing in a diner off-campus. I didn’t care to keep touch after that class and neither did she.
I pick up the dress. I turn to the full-length mirror on my closet door and hold it over me. I think it doesn’t need to be too drastic or melodramatic. Maybe it just needs to be mysterious. I don’t have to provide all the answers. I remember there is a pack of Natural American Spirits I haven’t used in years in the junk drawer.
I make my way through the kitchen thinking that I will take up a collection of mannequins. Two or three in unique poses seems appropriate. I look on Etsy when I get back.
Did I miss the train? I look at the clock. Of course I did.