Nude Men

backside off her chair, her legs trembling, waiting, positioned to race away the moment her parents tell her she’s dismissed. Except that Destiny does not wait to be dismissed. She races away anytime, all the time. She’s capricious, flirtatious, unfaithful, selfish, a clumsy artist, not a true friend but a charming one nevertheless. She’s always mischievous, incessantly saying “Oops,” then melting into giggles. Always innocent in her evd deeds, never to blame, crowned by a complete and utter lack of sensitivity.
    “Sara,” I say.
    “Sara.” The parrot is crying, except that there are no tears.
    A plane passes overhead.
     
    * * *
     
    H enrietta is losing weight every day. Her face is ravaged. Her eyes are sunken, very red and irritated from the constant crying, and surrounded by dark circles. There are red blotches on her face, and her upper lip is all puffed up, thicker than I’ve ever seen it. It looks like a boxer’s beat-up lip. All this isn’t doing much good for my spirits, and I feel she is pulling me down with her.
    I try to think of things to make her feel better. I decide to buy her marzipan. I find some in a little bakery in town. I also stop at the supermarket to buy her bottled water, because it’s all she drinks. I walk through the aisles. Everything reminds me of Sara, and I realize how deeply her personality has been incorporated into every aspect of my life. My clothes remind me of her, because she used to draw men’s clothes. I used to look at pretty women on the street or in the supermarket for the sake of looking at pretty women. Now when I see a pretty woman (especially one with big breasts) I cannot help but think: There goes one of Sara’s Barbie dolls. Or is she a Jane doll?
    The eggs in the dairy section remind me of Sara’s Humpty Dumpties. My facial features float on their surfaces.
    My thoughts are suddenly interrupted by the sight of a woman who looks extremely familiar. I slow my gait, trying to remember who she is. I get the feeling she is someone I don’t like, though I can’t remember why. And then I remember. She is one of my mother’s agents. She is the lemon woman, the one who asked me to hand her down the tall kitchen garbage bags.
    I stop next to her and say, “Could you please pass me the Ajax on that low shelf. My back hurts.”
    She stares at me, surprised. She recognizes me. Not saying a word, she bends down and gets me the Ajax.
    “I spend my life going back and forth between the supermarket and my home,” I tell her. “There are such strange people in the supermarket. People with problems and faults. But I would never pester someone in the supermarket by making subtle references to their fault, even if I got paid to do it. Would you?”
    “You’re doing it now.”
    “You started it.”
    “It was a favor.”
    “She called you her employee, her agent. Are you offended?”
    “No. She paid me for this favor.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t do it as a favor either.”
     
    A t home, I go to Henrietta’s room to give her the marzipan. I stop a few feet away from the door, stunned. I am hearing Sara’s voice coming from inside the room. Sara talking to Henrietta. “Repeat what you just told me,” I hear Henrietta say. “Why?” says Sara.
    “Say it in my tape recorder.”
    “I’m tired of getting all my bad news recorded in your machine.”
    “Please.”
    “I got an F in art.”
    There’s a click. I enter the room. Henrietta is sitting on her bed, with her tape recorder on her lap and the box of her daughter’s braids next to her. Her hand is in the box, petting the braids and the white ribbons attached to them. Tears are streaming down her face. About fifty crumpled Kleenexes are scattered around her. I sit on the other bed, the box of marzipan on my lap. A brief glance is her only acknowledgment of my presence. She lets the tape recorder run.
    “What did you say you wanted to be when you grow up?” asks Henrietta, from the tape recorder.
    “A housewife,” says Sara.
    Again there’s a click, signaling the end of one conversation and the beginning of another.
    “Can you repeat that,” says Henrietta. “Our connection was bad. I didn’t hear you quite well.”
    “Bullshit,” says Sara. “You just want to record me. Okay. Dear darling mother, I broke my leg at camp. It hurts terribly much. This is the tenth of August at three forty-three in the afternoon.”
    Click.
    “How many cavities did you