(no subject)
Anthony’s Noelle
Perhaps it was the unnatural brilliance of the doll’s clear blue eyes, staring at him from across the darkness of the closet; or perhaps it was the limp-necked way its head drooped over the rim of its doll-sized carriage; or perhaps it was its one tiny arm reaching out with splayed, dainty fingers as if in an effort to catch its balance should it topple out of the carriage altogether; but something about his sudden discovery of the doll startled Anthony. When he reached out to feel the synthetic softness of its long yellow curls, his hand was immediately jolted back by a sharp static shock. Why, he wondered, had Noelle kept this cumbersome doll and carriage in the corner of her tiny bedroom closet, rather than secreting it away to her parents’ basement along with all her other boxed and labeled childhood mementos? To have kept the doll in her bedroom closet was impractical. And because Noelle had on most counts been a very practical girl, there was therefore something sweet and vulnerable about her having kept the doll so accessible. Thinking of this, Anthony felt his love for her expand in his chest, as though there were an inflating balloon caught there in his ribcage, pressing against its walls.
But his interest in the doll was only a momentary distraction. Almost as suddenly as he discovered it, he forgot it; and his mind turned back to the more substantial closet artifacts of Noelle’s existence. There were her clothes: everyday knee-length dresses with faded flowered prints (the hems altered to such modest lengths by her mother), two pairs of jeans draped neatly over their hangers (the crisper pair for nicer outings, the softer pair for Chinese take-out nights), nostalgically pilled cardigans (she loved anything with buttons-anything she could do and undo), a black wool dress (she had admired the glint of her engagement ring against its somber fabric), and gauzy sleep shirts (how he ached to trace the sensitive line of her collarbone underneath that thin material). Sifting through Noelle’s clothes, Anthony felt anxious. He was unfamiliar with the proper motions of a grief-stricken fiancé. He felt his grief lodged in his throat like a peach pit, but he was uncertain of what customary behaviors should accompany it. And so, as if he were a character in a movie, he gathered all her clothes in his arms and held them to his face, searching for her scent among the cool folds of the fabric.
It was no use. It had been only two weeks-two weeks and twelve hours-since the accident. It hadn’t been long enough for him to forget Noelle’s scent in the first place, and therefore not long enough for him to recognize it again. On their first date, at the amusement park, on the rollercoaster, she had hidden her head in the crook of his neck as the tracks began to creak beneath their cart, and then he had been conscious of her smell-a mixture of loam and lavender. But two years had passed since that first date, two years of sleeping on her shoulder in cabs and rubbing her belly when it ached and kissing the valleys of her elbows, and two years is long enough for the body to become so accustomed to another body’s scent that it ceases to recognize it as something foreign and noteworthy. Strange, what the body takes for granted. Now he really had nothing left of her.
Her parents had taken him in. Two weeks before the accident, Noelle and Anthony had gotten an apartment together on the historic side of town-a bright place with shining floors-but now there was only one salary, and that wasn’t enough to cover the rent. Death carried so many practicalities, after all. Now he was subletting the place to a fat bachelor businessman, who slept on their pillow-top mattress and left shaving hairs on their sink basin.
“We are so grateful to have you here, Anthony,” said Noelle’s mother. “We are just so, so grateful,” and then she would pat his hair as if it were a pet’s fur coat. Since the accident, Noelle’s mother touched things a half-beat longer than was natural. Before she peeled an orange, she would first cradle it in her palm as if it were a bright round baby. When she put on her hair net, she would feel the shape of her bun underneath, as if marveling at its weight and texture.
She insisted on kissing Anthony’s forehead good-night every night at the doorway of Noelle’s bedroom-his bedroom now. Sometimes she would even hustle in past him to pull down the bedsheets and give the down pillow a hefty fluffing.
“Isn’t it nice,” she said, “to have these small routines at a time like this!”
Noelle had a private connecting bathroom with a small pink-tiled shower stall, barely large enough to bend over in when one dropped the soap bar. Standing under the hot stream of water in that stall was the worst time of all, but still Anthony found himself showering more frequently than was necessary. Inside the small pink shower it was isolated and claustrophobic, and the sound of the water jet drowned out all other noises. Anthony would crouch in the bottom of the stall-he was halfway conscious that crouching wasn’t appropriately masculine, but the stall was so private, after all-and down there he had an intimate view of the water washing down the drain. It was at these times that, without even realizing he was speaking until seconds after he had spoken, he would say “I love you” in a vacant, trailing voice.
Anthony was on leave from work. His boss had been very generous in affording him a great deal of time to shower, to lie in bed, and to read Noelle’s yellowed collection of young-adult serial novels about horseback riding, secret clubs, and babysitting misadventures.
One time Anthony’s coworker came to visit him. “What’s up, man?” he said in his most sensitive voice. “I just wanted to tell you, if you ever need to come over, watch some hockey, just sit around, you know…”
“I appreciate it. I really appreciate it. Tell Jack and Jules and all them that I’m coming back soon. We’ll go to a game,” said Anthony.
The truth was, Anthony didn’t want to go to a game. He basked in Noelle’s mother’s coddling inquiries about his health (“Let me feel your head!” she was always saying) and he found something vaguely tranquil in her small routines. She brought him tea in tea cosies, she reminded him to floss in spite of the sense of hopelessness he must feel, and she went through his luggage and arranged his formerly mismatched socks into identical couples.
Still, Anthony found himself lonely. He had gone through all Noelle’s belongings, first urgently, and then lingeringly, and now he seemed to have made every discovery there was to be made about her in her absence. While lying in bed he had conjured every image he could possibly recall of her, and then fashioned these piecemeal images and memories into heart-wrenching narratives which he replayed over and over in his mind like silent montages. He longed for her because he longed for the small surprises she had offered him each day with her simple bodily presence, surprises which he had taken for granted. And now it was just the opposite-no surprises, but only these daily mourning rituals of empty complacency.
. One day when he found a tiny lavender bow in Noelle’s jewelry box-too tiny for a real girl’s head-he recalled the doll in the closet. Now there was a secret, a part of Noelle he hadn’t known. He went to the closet and pulled the clothes aside as if peering through a curtain. There was the doll, its pale outstretched hand reaching for him.
He wheeled the carriage out to the middle of the room and examined the doll’s features: its small, smooth nose with delicate indentations for nostrils; a corner of its left eye where the extravagantly long eyelashes had fallen or been yanked out long ago; its chalky cloth body covered modestly by layers of muslin bloomers and lace-edged petticoats and a ruffled apron. Its blonde curls sprouted from its head in every which way, made springy from too many daily brushings and hair product applications. Its hair reminded Anthony of Noelle’s own untamable blonde curls, of how unruly they were in spite of her constant pursuit of order.
Anthony decided to wheel the carriage back into the closet, but he took the doll out and held it in front of him. Anthony knew that it may be considered peculiar, but then peculiar things were often considered quite acceptable under these circumstances. And besides, he would not see anyone for a very long time, not until Noelle’s mother called him down for supper.
He laid the doll horizontally on the bed at first. Then he decided that that was not quite right-it seemed disrespectful, in a way-and so he instead oriented the doll so that its head was lying on the pillow and its body was tucked underneath the quilt. He tenderly closed its eyelids shut. Then he lay down beside it, turned on his side so he could face it, and tucked his hands under his head. He fell asleep until suppertime.
***
Although Anthony never traveled far, he began to take the doll with him wherever he went. When he shaved, which wasn’t very often, he brought the doll into the bathroom with him and settled her comfortably in an empty soap dish on the sink. (She could even be made to sit up on her own if he manipulated her cloth joints in a particular way.) Once Noelle and Anthony had gotten that place on the historic side of town together, Noelle had liked to sit on the edge of the bathtub and tell Anthony the mundane events of her day while he slathered the shaving cream on his face. “It’s like we’re married already!” she would finish with glee. One time she got up and put a dollop of shaving cream on her chin, then said, “Would you love me if I ever grew a beard?”
He would sleep next to the doll, too, though he would make sure to cover her entire body with the blanket, should Noelle’s mother happen to walk in. He wasn’t careless about those things.
One day Noelle’s mother called up the stairs to Anthony to tell him he had a phone call.
“Hello?” Anthony said into the clunky receiver.
“Anthony, it’s Beth. Beth, Noelle’s friend? I just heard from Jules-we went to college together, you see-I just heard the bad news. I know it’s late to be saying it, but I just wanted to call you and tell you how terribly sorry I am. That’s awful. That’s incomprehensible. It was so unexpected-”
“Thank you,” Anthony said politely, which he had gotten quite used to saying after such outpourings of condolences, though he still didn’t know if that was the correct thing to say. “Noelle’s friend? I remember. We met at that party. We played pool.”
“Yes!” Beth said ecstatically. “Yes, you were very good. Me, I hardly know which end the chalk goes on.”
There was a long pause.
“Noelle and I were both never sensational at pool.”
“No,” agreed Anthony, and feigned a good-natured laugh.
“Anthony,” said Beth. “I was wondering-well, I hope it’s not too awkward of me to ask-it’s just that Noelle and I used to be very close at one time. She went to my batmitzvah, you know. And ever since I found out what happened, well, I’ve had this ache to know the particulars. Is that gory of me? I don’t mean for it to be gory. It’s just about, I don’t know, a sense of closure or whatever those psychologists tell you it’s about. Did she suffer long? Was she in pain?” asked Beth. Her voice was high and tight.
“To be honest, Beth,” said Anthony, “I don’t know. I guess you could say I don’t want to know.”
That was one discovery he had yet to make about Noelle-the one secret she still had to offer him. But he didn’t want to know that part of her. He didn’t want to know how it ended, because it was all still beginning with Noelle. He realized it sounded odd-a grown man, her fiancé, and he couldn’t handle knowing how it had happened. Noelle’s mother made sure he never had to know, either. He was so grateful for her that way.
“I know it happened on that bridge-that picturesque fucking postcard bridge-over Willowbend River,” said Anthony. “Her car went into the river. That’s all I know.”
“Okay, Anthony,” said Beth. “I understand. Please, take care of yourself?”
“I will. Good-bye, Beth. Tell Jules I said hello.”
That night Anthony couldn’t lay in bed without curling his knees up to his chest. He felt like whatever was trapped in his ribcage was about to burst open, and he held his knees tight to his chest to try to contain the pressure. The doll looked at him with her clear blue eyes from across the bed.
“Hello, Noelle,” he said, without realizing he was speaking until he had already spoken. “Hello, my Noelle. My Noelle, my Noelle, my Noelle…” he said, chanting the words until the words became sobs.
He reached out and stroked her smooth, hard cheek. He ran his finger down her dainty nose, across her cupid’s bow mouth, down her soft, beardless chin. Then he slowly unfolded his knees from his chest, reached across the bed, and kissed her.
But it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t anything near the same. The smell of the doll assaulted his nose, more distinctly now than ever. It smelled like plastic.
* * *
Anthony was climbing down the slope of rocks under Willowbend Bridge. He must have looked like a hobo, desperately scavenging for trash or shelter, with his unshaven face and mismatched socks. He hadn’t been outdoors in weeks, and he hadn’t dressed appropriately. The chill night wind beat against his bare arms and made him feel exhilarated and clear-minded every time he breathed it in. The doll was tucked under his arm, and its garish yellow curls bounced as Anthony clambered over the sharp boulders, making his way to the river’s edge.
He was going to throw that doll into the river. He was going to watch it rush away down the river. He imagined its milk-white cloth body becoming saturated with brown muddy water, filling up with water the way Noelle’s lungs had. He imagined its perfect bone structure pummeling against the river rocks, its nose collapsing in on itself. He imagined it washing up in some desolate industrial part of town, with its blonde hair matted to its head by trout slime.
The ice-cold water was a shock. In his clumsy scrambling down the slope, Anthony had picked up too much momentum. He had tripped. He was in the water now, flailing about for some stronghold to latch onto. An acute pain was blossoming in his ankle and sprouting up the side of his calf.
But he wasn’t drowning. No, he was safe and steadied, clasping onto a rock set in the bank. The rushing water wasn’t as strong and fierce as he had imagined it; it was barely deep enough to submerge his waist.
But the doll-the doll was gone. Suddenly panic welled up his throat. He had lost her.
“Noelle!” he screamed. “Noelle!”
But she didn’t answer him. She was already far down the river, and it was too far for him to swim.