James & Lucy
Last night, I let some of my collegey writer friends read the James & Lucy piece, and talking about it with them made me realize that it's actually totally complete as it is. So I'm posting it one last time, all in one go, with all my nitpicky little changes in place... and with that, IT IS DONE!!!
James Mayer’s first wife left him; he can’t remember why.
He supposes it doesn’t matter, as long as she knew at the time.
James Mayer has a blue Honda Civic. He never plays music when he drives.
He plays instead his memories of Lucy. Lucy gasping, Lucy screaming
More
Yes
More
Please
James Mayer never takes his eyes off the road.
James Mayer has an apartment up the stairs, where there are coasters. He uses them even when no one else is there.
On mornings after Lucy leaves, James Mayer scrubs the ring-shaped water stains off his coffee table.
James Mayer has a secret.
James Mayer
James Mayer
James Mayer’s second wife left him for a man named Guy. James Mayer doesn’t blame her, but he misses her sometimes.
James Mayer hates it when Lucy won’t pick up her phone. If he doesn’t talk to her, he starts to feel like he can’t breathe.
It isn’t
It’s not
James Mayer’s mother died before he was old enough to say much more than her name
Mommy
James Mayer never eats peanut butter with a spoon.
James Mayer was happy, he thinks, as a boy.
James Mayer was
James Mayer
James
James Mayer sometimes wonders why no one ever called him Jimmy.
He wants
He wants
He only wants to talk to her
More
Yes
More
Please
James Mayer had a sister called Carol. Carol was very sick for a very long time. She died when James Mayer was ten years old.
He wanted to hurt more
But
He had kind of always known it was going to happen
so
so
James Mayer hears a noise like gears turning in the sides of his head every time he cries.
It has a peculiar creaking that sounds like “Lucy.”
He wishes it didn’t.
James Mayer’s father didn’t come to his third wedding. He said it was too expensive; he’d send a card.
He didn’t.
James Mayer’s third wife has a beautiful laugh
and puts a different kind of potpourri in every room.
And James Mayer
James Mayer
James Mayer has a secret
And Lucy has a smile with teeth
James Mayer didn’t want to do it
James Mayer could have stopped
James Mayer thinks he could have stopped
More
Yes
More
Please
She laughed and her laugh was terrible
She laughed and her laugh was terrible
James Mayer’s father gave him a briefcase when he graduated college. One of the snaps is broken, but James Mayer still carries it to work with him every day.
James Mayer speaks three languages.
James Mayer
James Mayer
James Mayer has another sister. Her name is Lucy.
James Mayer was a pretty, frightened little boy who grew up to be a pretty, frightened little man.
Lucy was a sharp, angry little girl who grew up to be a gorgeous, sadistic monster.
This is their story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a sunny afternoon. James Mayer thought that was almost unfair. It probably should have been raining. There was a picture of an angel on Carol’s grave, because Daddy had said there should be. The angel had big sad eyes, and the hair that floated around her head looked blonde.
James hated it.
He remembered how Carol used to cut up her black tights and braid the strands together, how she’d put them on her head and pretend that she had dark hair, like Lucy’s.
James was blond. He couldn’t remember what color Carol’s hair had been. He guessed she might have been blonde, as well.
There were a lot of people James didn’t know in that cemetery. He stuck by Lucy’s side and tried not to suck his thumb. He knew she would say he was too old for that now.
“I’m so sorry, my darlings,” an old woman in pink lipstick told them. “This must be so terrible for you. But you know, she’s with the angels now.”
James bit his lip and reached for Lucy’s hand. He wanted to go home.
“We know, Aunt Paula,” said Lucy. Her voice was steady, and she didn’t look at James, but her thumbnail scritch-scratching at his palm reassured him. He tried to breathe steady. He tried not to think about anything. Lucy would take care of it.
When Lucy was seven years old, she saw a puppy in a pet shop window and decided she wanted one. She pestered for weeks and weeks, but Carol was in the middle of a relapse, and Daddy didn’t have the energy to take care of an animal.
“I’d feed it myself and everything, you don’t even have to.”
“I can’t deal with this right now, Lucy, okay? Think about your sister.”
“She could play with it, too! She’d like it, I know she would!”
“I said no, Lucy, and that’s final.”
James watched with wide, five-year-old eyes as something flashed behind Lucy’s face. He held his breath.
“Fine,” she said, and grabbed his hand. It hurt when she pulled him out of the room, and he worked his little legs as hard as they could to keep up with her.
“We’re going to play pretend, James, okay?”
“Okay!” Lucy barely ever played with him, even when he begged her.
“Good. You’re going to pretend to be a puppy, okay? And I’m going to take care of you. And if you’re very good at it, then we can get a real puppy, and we can play with it together. Got it?”
James grinned and dropped to all fours. “I can be even better than a real puppy, I promise!”
That flash again, that quiet flicker behind Lucy’s eyes. “I know you can,” she said. “But don’t bother Daddy or Carol, okay? You’re mine.”
James stuck his tongue out and nodded, panting. He was Lucy’s.
For three whole days James followed Lucy on his hands and knees, pulled by a striped scarf tied around his neck. He ate under the table, tethered to the leg of Lucy’s chair, while Daddy pretended he didn’t notice anything different. He curled up at Lucy’s feet while she did her homework and he slept at the foot of her bed. On the morning of the fourth day, Lucy got into a fight with another girl at school and forgot she had ever wanted a puppy.
James missed his “leash” so much he wore turtlenecks for a week.
“Did you fuck her?”
“What?”
“I said, did you fuck her.” Lucy’s voice is full of cold laughter over the speakerphone. James misses her so intensely sometimes he doesn’t know what to do.
“Jesus, Lucy, do you always have to be so blunt? No, I didn’t fuck her.”
“A-ha!”
“Not yet, anyway, which is the whole point of the third date in the civilized world.”
“That long, huh? I always knew I hated the civilized world for a reason.”
James laughs as he flicks through the jackets hanging in his closet. Lucy’s teasing is a comforting constant in his life, entirely the opposite of Cassie’s indulging smile and sweet laugh. He thinks of the way her fingers had brushed his when she took his phone to give him her number, and finds himself grinning.
“James? Stay with me, Romeo, I don’t want to sit here on the phone while you dream your filthy little dreams.”
James can feel his smile spreading to the far corners of his face. He likes Cassie, really likes her, and he isn’t about to let Lucy pull him back down from it. Cassie is perfect and clean and beautiful, and she likes him, she likes him, James Mayer. He’s on cloud nine.
“I’m here, Lucy, you haven’t lost me yet. Tie, or no tie?”
“Whoah, whoah. You’re not dressing up for this, are you?”
“I want to make a good impression!”
“By dressing like a member of Future Republican Bankers of America? Yeah, James, you sure know how to get the ladies swooning.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“No tie, James!”
“Goodbye, Lucy.”
“Promise me you won’t wear a tie.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Fine. Bring a condom.”
“Good bye, Lucy.”
“Mm. Say hi to Cassie for me, will you?” There was a hint of Lucy’s terrible smile in her words, the smile that means a scheme. A secret. A thrill runs through James, which he decidedly ignores. The click when Lucy hangs up the phone leaves him dazed, and he stands staring at his reflection for almost a full minute before he remembers what he was doing.
He takes off his tie.
Cassie comes and goes. So does Nora, and Jennifer, and now, he guesses, Amy.
Twenty years old, a sophomore in college, and James Mayer is starting to believe he may be somehow toxic to relationships. He’s a diligent boyfriend, he never cheats and he never forgets birthdays, he always pays for dinner and his eye never wanders. He just can’t shake the feeling that, underneath, he’s only pretending to care. None of it feels genuine, like it would if… well. Like it should, anyway.
He calls Lucy for advice, sometimes, but all he gets is that quiet laugh that sends tiny tremors up and down his skin, sets his teeth on edge. Lucy is nothing like James’ girlfriends, anyway, he doesn’t know why he thought she’d be helpful. James’ sweet, pretty blondes would have no idea what to make of Lucy’s dark eyes and wolf smile. He wonders, sometimes, that two such different creatures could even be of the same breed.
When he closes his eyes, though, it’s not their clean scent of shampoo and perfume and chemicals meant to smell like flowers that he imagines.
He tries. He does. He breathes in deep, holding the shirt Amy left in his room, and he tries to think of the way her pale eyelashes flutter when she wants him to kiss her, the way her hand reaches for his in the dark… but all he can see is black hair and white teeth, all he can feel is the slow scratch of sharp nails, and all he can smell is sweat and smoke and sin sin sin.
He can fight it off. He can. James scratches himself, long and deep, all down his chest, and he watches the four thin streaks fade from white, to pink, to red. His breath catches. He definitely, definitely shouldn’t call her.
Red back to pink. Soon it will be gone completely. Lucy always knew how to leave marks that would stay for days. James thinks maybe his nails just aren’t long enough.
Lucy’s phone goes straight to voicemail.
You have the wrong number. Don’t leave a message.
James hangs up before the beep. He’s still holding Amy’s shirt in his hands. He’s absolutely not going to let himself think about this. He’s just going to move on, like Lucy would do. Like he thinks Lucy would do. Why isn’t she picking up her phone??
You have the wrong number. Don’t leave a-
Shit. Shit. Stop calling. Stop doing this.
Another long scratch, digging down with bitten nails. He’s breathing heavy but it still doesn’t feel right. Lucy. Lucy.
You have the wrong number. Don’t--
James balls the phone up in Amy’s shirt and throws both across the room. The soft thud it makes is extremely unsatisfying.
He sits in staring silence for a while, trying not to see the dark hair-dye stains on Amy’s white shirt, trying not to think about Amy or Lucy or anybody. Trying not to think at all.
The phone rings and he runs for it like a trained puppy. Lucy. He can almost feel his tail wagging, and he hates himself. He hangs up the phone without checking the caller ID.
He checks the caller ID.
Amy. Shit. Shit. He should probably call her back, he should probably-he doesn’t even know. He needs to talk to Lucy. He needs her laughing at him. He needs to hear her.
He just. Needs.
And so it starts.
Once, after, when James was dressing with eyes averted, ashamed, afraid, he told her what he was thinking.
“I hate you.”
Lucy laughed with perfect teeth. “No,” she said, “you don’t.”
“I do,” he said, looking her straight in the eye, the first time since he can’t remember when.
“Don’t lie to yourself, James.” Still smiling. Always smiling. He couldn’t stand the look of her.
“I hate you,” he said again, nearly shaking now. He felt like he might come apart. He wanted to smack her. He wanted to cry.
“I h-- hate… I hate that you have a key to my apartment, I-- I hate all your shoes.”
She wouldn’t stop smirking. Long fingers tracing the line of her throat. Purple nail polish. He couldn’t think.
“I-- you--” he thought he might be choking. Her soft laugh chilled him to the bone.
“Oh, come on, don’t stop now, you were on such a roll!” She smiled and he wanted to break something.
“I hate-- I can’t--” That laugh again. Those hands. He felt defeated.
“What’s that, James?”
“I… you… you live in all the wrong parts of me.” He didn’t know what he meant.
Her nail scratched lightly down his arm. When had he moved so close? He hated her. He hated himself. He couldn’t feel his teeth.
th-th-th-th-th-th-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!!
James Mayer’s first wife left him; he can’t remember why.
He supposes it doesn’t matter, as long as she knew at the time.
James Mayer has a blue Honda Civic. He never plays music when he drives.
He plays instead his memories of Lucy. Lucy gasping, Lucy screaming
More
Yes
More
Please
James Mayer never takes his eyes off the road.
James Mayer has an apartment up the stairs, where there are coasters. He uses them even when no one else is there.
On mornings after Lucy leaves, James Mayer scrubs the ring-shaped water stains off his coffee table.
James Mayer has a secret.
James Mayer
James Mayer
James Mayer’s second wife left him for a man named Guy. James Mayer doesn’t blame her, but he misses her sometimes.
James Mayer hates it when Lucy won’t pick up her phone. If he doesn’t talk to her, he starts to feel like he can’t breathe.
It isn’t
It’s not
James Mayer’s mother died before he was old enough to say much more than her name
Mommy
James Mayer never eats peanut butter with a spoon.
James Mayer was happy, he thinks, as a boy.
James Mayer was
James Mayer
James
James Mayer sometimes wonders why no one ever called him Jimmy.
He wants
He wants
He only wants to talk to her
More
Yes
More
Please
James Mayer had a sister called Carol. Carol was very sick for a very long time. She died when James Mayer was ten years old.
He wanted to hurt more
But
He had kind of always known it was going to happen
so
so
James Mayer hears a noise like gears turning in the sides of his head every time he cries.
It has a peculiar creaking that sounds like “Lucy.”
He wishes it didn’t.
James Mayer’s father didn’t come to his third wedding. He said it was too expensive; he’d send a card.
He didn’t.
James Mayer’s third wife has a beautiful laugh
and puts a different kind of potpourri in every room.
And James Mayer
James Mayer
James Mayer has a secret
And Lucy has a smile with teeth
James Mayer didn’t want to do it
James Mayer could have stopped
James Mayer thinks he could have stopped
More
Yes
More
Please
She laughed and her laugh was terrible
She laughed and her laugh was terrible
James Mayer’s father gave him a briefcase when he graduated college. One of the snaps is broken, but James Mayer still carries it to work with him every day.
James Mayer speaks three languages.
James Mayer
James Mayer
James Mayer has another sister. Her name is Lucy.
James Mayer was a pretty, frightened little boy who grew up to be a pretty, frightened little man.
Lucy was a sharp, angry little girl who grew up to be a gorgeous, sadistic monster.
This is their story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a sunny afternoon. James Mayer thought that was almost unfair. It probably should have been raining. There was a picture of an angel on Carol’s grave, because Daddy had said there should be. The angel had big sad eyes, and the hair that floated around her head looked blonde.
James hated it.
He remembered how Carol used to cut up her black tights and braid the strands together, how she’d put them on her head and pretend that she had dark hair, like Lucy’s.
James was blond. He couldn’t remember what color Carol’s hair had been. He guessed she might have been blonde, as well.
There were a lot of people James didn’t know in that cemetery. He stuck by Lucy’s side and tried not to suck his thumb. He knew she would say he was too old for that now.
“I’m so sorry, my darlings,” an old woman in pink lipstick told them. “This must be so terrible for you. But you know, she’s with the angels now.”
James bit his lip and reached for Lucy’s hand. He wanted to go home.
“We know, Aunt Paula,” said Lucy. Her voice was steady, and she didn’t look at James, but her thumbnail scritch-scratching at his palm reassured him. He tried to breathe steady. He tried not to think about anything. Lucy would take care of it.
When Lucy was seven years old, she saw a puppy in a pet shop window and decided she wanted one. She pestered for weeks and weeks, but Carol was in the middle of a relapse, and Daddy didn’t have the energy to take care of an animal.
“I’d feed it myself and everything, you don’t even have to.”
“I can’t deal with this right now, Lucy, okay? Think about your sister.”
“She could play with it, too! She’d like it, I know she would!”
“I said no, Lucy, and that’s final.”
James watched with wide, five-year-old eyes as something flashed behind Lucy’s face. He held his breath.
“Fine,” she said, and grabbed his hand. It hurt when she pulled him out of the room, and he worked his little legs as hard as they could to keep up with her.
“We’re going to play pretend, James, okay?”
“Okay!” Lucy barely ever played with him, even when he begged her.
“Good. You’re going to pretend to be a puppy, okay? And I’m going to take care of you. And if you’re very good at it, then we can get a real puppy, and we can play with it together. Got it?”
James grinned and dropped to all fours. “I can be even better than a real puppy, I promise!”
That flash again, that quiet flicker behind Lucy’s eyes. “I know you can,” she said. “But don’t bother Daddy or Carol, okay? You’re mine.”
James stuck his tongue out and nodded, panting. He was Lucy’s.
For three whole days James followed Lucy on his hands and knees, pulled by a striped scarf tied around his neck. He ate under the table, tethered to the leg of Lucy’s chair, while Daddy pretended he didn’t notice anything different. He curled up at Lucy’s feet while she did her homework and he slept at the foot of her bed. On the morning of the fourth day, Lucy got into a fight with another girl at school and forgot she had ever wanted a puppy.
James missed his “leash” so much he wore turtlenecks for a week.
“Did you fuck her?”
“What?”
“I said, did you fuck her.” Lucy’s voice is full of cold laughter over the speakerphone. James misses her so intensely sometimes he doesn’t know what to do.
“Jesus, Lucy, do you always have to be so blunt? No, I didn’t fuck her.”
“A-ha!”
“Not yet, anyway, which is the whole point of the third date in the civilized world.”
“That long, huh? I always knew I hated the civilized world for a reason.”
James laughs as he flicks through the jackets hanging in his closet. Lucy’s teasing is a comforting constant in his life, entirely the opposite of Cassie’s indulging smile and sweet laugh. He thinks of the way her fingers had brushed his when she took his phone to give him her number, and finds himself grinning.
“James? Stay with me, Romeo, I don’t want to sit here on the phone while you dream your filthy little dreams.”
James can feel his smile spreading to the far corners of his face. He likes Cassie, really likes her, and he isn’t about to let Lucy pull him back down from it. Cassie is perfect and clean and beautiful, and she likes him, she likes him, James Mayer. He’s on cloud nine.
“I’m here, Lucy, you haven’t lost me yet. Tie, or no tie?”
“Whoah, whoah. You’re not dressing up for this, are you?”
“I want to make a good impression!”
“By dressing like a member of Future Republican Bankers of America? Yeah, James, you sure know how to get the ladies swooning.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“No tie, James!”
“Goodbye, Lucy.”
“Promise me you won’t wear a tie.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Fine. Bring a condom.”
“Good bye, Lucy.”
“Mm. Say hi to Cassie for me, will you?” There was a hint of Lucy’s terrible smile in her words, the smile that means a scheme. A secret. A thrill runs through James, which he decidedly ignores. The click when Lucy hangs up the phone leaves him dazed, and he stands staring at his reflection for almost a full minute before he remembers what he was doing.
He takes off his tie.
Cassie comes and goes. So does Nora, and Jennifer, and now, he guesses, Amy.
Twenty years old, a sophomore in college, and James Mayer is starting to believe he may be somehow toxic to relationships. He’s a diligent boyfriend, he never cheats and he never forgets birthdays, he always pays for dinner and his eye never wanders. He just can’t shake the feeling that, underneath, he’s only pretending to care. None of it feels genuine, like it would if… well. Like it should, anyway.
He calls Lucy for advice, sometimes, but all he gets is that quiet laugh that sends tiny tremors up and down his skin, sets his teeth on edge. Lucy is nothing like James’ girlfriends, anyway, he doesn’t know why he thought she’d be helpful. James’ sweet, pretty blondes would have no idea what to make of Lucy’s dark eyes and wolf smile. He wonders, sometimes, that two such different creatures could even be of the same breed.
When he closes his eyes, though, it’s not their clean scent of shampoo and perfume and chemicals meant to smell like flowers that he imagines.
He tries. He does. He breathes in deep, holding the shirt Amy left in his room, and he tries to think of the way her pale eyelashes flutter when she wants him to kiss her, the way her hand reaches for his in the dark… but all he can see is black hair and white teeth, all he can feel is the slow scratch of sharp nails, and all he can smell is sweat and smoke and sin sin sin.
He can fight it off. He can. James scratches himself, long and deep, all down his chest, and he watches the four thin streaks fade from white, to pink, to red. His breath catches. He definitely, definitely shouldn’t call her.
Red back to pink. Soon it will be gone completely. Lucy always knew how to leave marks that would stay for days. James thinks maybe his nails just aren’t long enough.
Lucy’s phone goes straight to voicemail.
You have the wrong number. Don’t leave a message.
James hangs up before the beep. He’s still holding Amy’s shirt in his hands. He’s absolutely not going to let himself think about this. He’s just going to move on, like Lucy would do. Like he thinks Lucy would do. Why isn’t she picking up her phone??
You have the wrong number. Don’t leave a-
Shit. Shit. Stop calling. Stop doing this.
Another long scratch, digging down with bitten nails. He’s breathing heavy but it still doesn’t feel right. Lucy. Lucy.
You have the wrong number. Don’t--
James balls the phone up in Amy’s shirt and throws both across the room. The soft thud it makes is extremely unsatisfying.
He sits in staring silence for a while, trying not to see the dark hair-dye stains on Amy’s white shirt, trying not to think about Amy or Lucy or anybody. Trying not to think at all.
The phone rings and he runs for it like a trained puppy. Lucy. He can almost feel his tail wagging, and he hates himself. He hangs up the phone without checking the caller ID.
He checks the caller ID.
Amy. Shit. Shit. He should probably call her back, he should probably-he doesn’t even know. He needs to talk to Lucy. He needs her laughing at him. He needs to hear her.
He just. Needs.
And so it starts.
Once, after, when James was dressing with eyes averted, ashamed, afraid, he told her what he was thinking.
“I hate you.”
Lucy laughed with perfect teeth. “No,” she said, “you don’t.”
“I do,” he said, looking her straight in the eye, the first time since he can’t remember when.
“Don’t lie to yourself, James.” Still smiling. Always smiling. He couldn’t stand the look of her.
“I hate you,” he said again, nearly shaking now. He felt like he might come apart. He wanted to smack her. He wanted to cry.
“I h-- hate… I hate that you have a key to my apartment, I-- I hate all your shoes.”
She wouldn’t stop smirking. Long fingers tracing the line of her throat. Purple nail polish. He couldn’t think.
“I-- you--” he thought he might be choking. Her soft laugh chilled him to the bone.
“Oh, come on, don’t stop now, you were on such a roll!” She smiled and he wanted to break something.
“I hate-- I can’t--” That laugh again. Those hands. He felt defeated.
“What’s that, James?”
“I… you… you live in all the wrong parts of me.” He didn’t know what he meant.
Her nail scratched lightly down his arm. When had he moved so close? He hated her. He hated himself. He couldn’t feel his teeth.
th-th-th-th-th-th-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!!