Cassandra's Plan

David Phillips / November 24, 1994, 3:22 p.m.

Dad is sitting in the easy chair looking intently at the TV screen. There's a football game going on—Detroit Loins against somebody or other. The Lions always play on Thanksgiving. It's about the only exposure they get, I suppose. The game is almost over; Dad seems very keen on the outcome. There'll be another game after this one—always two on Thanksgiving-and he'll watch that one too.

Mother, of course, is in the kitchen. The aroma wafting from there is already almost intoxicating, although the meal won't be ready for another hour or two. I can just see her through the door of the den. She looks totally at home. She's like a general, giving orders to an array of battalions for some incredibly complex maneuver; and she knows it will all work out like clockwork. Nothing goes wrong when Mother's in the kitchen.

I decide to join her there. The outcome of the game was long ago decided, although I don't know or care who's winning. I sit down a little heavily in a chair. The table in front of me is already covered with sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and the succulent crust of the pumpkin pie. That crust is just waiting to encircle the filling.

Mom looks over at me abruptly and with some startlement: she was so intent on her work that she didn't see me come in. But she gives me a big smile, wipes her hands on her apron, and looks about for something to shove into my mouth, as if there were no other reason for my coming in here. I just smile and wave her off gently, taking up a broccoli spear just for show.

She is still beaming at me. "David, it was so good of you to come out here!" I have a feeling she wants to take both my cheeks and pinch them.

"Mom, I love to come back here. You know that."

Her smile remains, but her eyes cloud over. "Yes, I know that. I just wish you'd make it here more often."

I look down at the table groaning with food. For an instant I feel a little sick. "I'm pretty busy, Mom."

She turns her head at an angle. "Dear, it's not as if you're working . . ." A momentary flicker of horror passes over her face at the faux pas. "I mean, it's not as if you have a job that keeps you at a desk working overtime or anything. You could do your writing here, can't you? We'd leave you alone."

"Yes, I know you would. It's just . . ." I feel overwhelmed at the attempt to explain. I'm not even sure what there is to explain anyway.

Mom feels she has to take up the slack of the conversation, but she does it in a way I don't care for. "It's too bad Cassandra couldn't come out. We'd love to see her."

"Yes, I know. She's . . ." This is certainly something I don't want to explain. Surely Mom and Dad haven't forgotten the time early in our marriage when we came here for a couple of weeks? God, what a nightmare that was!

But I see that Mom has remembered. She is presumably about to change the subject when Dad walks heavily in. I'm rather surprised to see him, but he says that the game is over and the next game won't start until four. The pregame show is boring.

He sits down next to me. He claps me on the shoulder. "Good to have you here, son." That's about the extent of the emotion he'll ever express.

I don't mean that maliciously. As I look at his warm, open face, a little puffy with age and eating too well, I wonder why there can't be more people like him. Maybe there are; they just don't seem to move in the circles I move in now.

He's retired now, thank God. He sold the drugstore for a good price, and he and Mom can look forward to a comfortable retirement. They don't need me to provide for them. Not that Cassandra or her parents would care to do that anyway.

Mother resumes speaking. "David"—she's not looking at me, she's stirring something on the stove—"you know, we'd like to see a grandchild before we're too much older." I knew this would come up sometime during my visit here, but I didn't think she'd throw it at me quite this soon.

"Mom, believe me, we're trying . . ." I have to lie on this one. I can't tell her about Cassandra's views on the subject. Thank Heaven Mother hasn't had the courage to raise the issue with Cassandra herself, so that she's never heard Cassandra say in that barbed tone of hers that children will ruin her figure and that she doesn't have the patience to raise them, etc., etc.

Anyway, the idea of Cassandra as a mother fills me with a kind of shuddering terror.

Mother considers my remark and decides to say nothing. Even she is not so naive as to think that thirteen years of "trying" with nothing to show for it is just bad luck. She says instead:

"You know, I hope you keep in touch with Lauren now and then. She's such a nice girl."

This is going from bad to worse. Dad has removed his hand from my shoulder and is looking fixedly at the food on the table. He doesn't say much, and he doesn't even seem to feel much sometimes, but he knows me a lot better than Mom does. He knows what things I don't want to talk about. But Mother either doesn't know or feels she has to force me to talk about them.

"I do stay in touch with Lauren. She's pretty busy too."

"Everybody's busy in New York, I suppose," she says, not looking at me but at her cooking.

"Yes, they are."

"Then it must be a pretty awful place to live. Everyone running around like tops spinning on a gameboard." She seems proud of that simile.

"It can be a strain sometimes. But there are lots of other good things about it."

She doesn't want to hear that, so she just gives a little scoff of disbelief and takes the bubbling pot off the stove.

Presently it's time to eat. We all sit in front of the TV, each of us with our own little folding tray. It's so small that we can barely accommodate all the food that goes on it. We just watch the game, even Mother, even though she doesn't like or understand football. She's learnt enough, though, not to ask potentially stupid or irritating questions about what's going on.

I wish I knew what I was doing here. Why did I come back? Oh, sure, it's nice to see the folks, especially when they refuse to come to New York, and I really ought to come back here more often—at least once a year—before they get too much older. But at this exact moment I haven't a clue why I'm here or what I hope to accomplish. It all seems so totally futile. Going back up to my bedroom makes me feel as if the last seventeen years never happened: the room hasn't changed one iota since the time I left to go to college, except that Mother has gradually filled the corners with a variety of objects that they don't use anymore and that really ought to be thrown away. I even once found one of my old term papers from junior high in a closet.

I can't sleep in that bed, though. I've insisted on taking the guest room. I'm sure Mom and Dad know why; they're not stupid.

I have to laugh thinking of the time they tried to make peace with Lauren's parents, saying that two young people who love each other shouldn't have needless obstacles put in their path. Her parents simply looked on with outraged horror and marched out of the place. I don't imagine they've spoken to each other ever since, certainly not after what I did later.

I look at my plate of food. The sick feeling has returned, but I take no notice and start shoveling the food into my mouth. Maybe if I eat enough I'll get so heavy that I can sleep through the next three days. Imagine actually being eager to get back to New York. And now I can't even imagine how I could ever have felt eager to come here.

Lauren Oxley / June 19, 1995, 7:33 p.m.

Friday night. Another stellar week of secretarial duties behind me. Dinner—pasta with meat sauce—finished. Dishes washed. Nothing on TV; don't have cable. Have already told the girls I don't want to go out with them tonight.

The apartment diagonally across from me is already getting noisy with a party. It'll go on all evening, well into the night, I'm sure. I share one wall with them—my bedroom wall, unluckily enough. No use pounding; that never works.

The personal ads in the New York Review of Books, New York magazine, and the New York Press have turned up nothing. Maybe I'm getting more particular, although God knows why I should be after all the prior failures; maybe I'm just losing interest.

It's so funny. People from out of town say, "Gosh, Lauren, there are so many men in New York! You must have them lining up outside your door!" Oh, there are men all right; but people don't seem to realize that the bigger the city, the harder it is to meet anyone. What are you supposed to do? Grab a briefcase-toting businessman on the street (once you've noticed there's no ring on his finger—you get pretty good at that), and say, "Hey, guy, are you nice, employed, straight, and not a serial rapist? If so, how'd you like to get married and have my kids?"

And then there's the problem of being an immigrant . . . God knows I still feel like one, even though I've lived here for eighteen years. Immigrant from the Midwest? Don't laugh. I still seem to have some trace of an Indiana accent, which makes some people look at me as a kind of quaint sideshow attraction and makes others wonder which wrong turn I took from my cornfield. New Yorkers cosmopolitan? No, they're pretty provincial. Just like the folks in Indiana.

I don't want to do this, but I can't help myself. I think back at my involvement with David. I've been thinking of that—and of him—a lot lately.

I don't blame him for what happened. Leaving me was his choice; I had no hold on him. I was just a chump for reacting the way I did; I've been reacting for fourteen years.

I wonder, though . . . Would I have been so devoted to him if, back in high school, my parents—soul-saving evangelicals that they were, and are—hadn't been so horrified at finding that we had "had carnal knowledge of each other" and tried to prevent us from seeing each other? It didn't work, of course; my parents weren't exactly jailors. After a couple of months they gave it up, although their continuing disapproval of David must have fed my emotions at least a little. That's how you are at that age.

(David's parents, cheerful agnostics that they were, didn't seem to have a problem with occasional double occupancy in his bedroom.)

But what's the use? What's the use of dredging up the past? No use—except that one who has no future doesn't have much else to do.

I go to my bedroom. I open the bottom drawer of my dresser. God, I really shouldn't do this—not this early, anyway. It's scarcely even dark outside. For one mad moment I wonder whether I should put on some kind of show for the noisy partygoers across the way; but I start to shudder at the mere idea of it. I draw the shade and fall heavily on my bed, vibrator in hand.

I close my eyes so that I can fantasize better. Sometimes it takes a great effort, and sometimes it's not even possible. Let's see what happens this time. I slowly unbutton my blouse, then unzip my skirt. I've already taken my stockings off. I rub the vibrator—not turned on yet—over my breasts, still encased in my bra. The vibrator is a little cold, even though it's been buried in my woolen sweater. I place it between my thighs to warm it up while I reach around and unclip my bra. I think of all the men—not all that many, actually—who have had so much trouble with that procedure. Really pretty simple once you get used to it.

I roll over on my stomach and take my panties off. I'm not really very wet yet, but no jelly for me—never use that stuff. I finally turn the vibrator on; it makes a sound like an electric razor. Doesn't matter; I'm used to it, and it doesn't interfere with my fantasies.

Getting on my back, I place it between the lips of my cunt and rub it gently there. I start feeling a little wet. I grab one breast with my other hand and knead it. I wonder suddenly if this sort of thing makes one sag. I don't know, and don't care very much.

I decide to take the vibrator on my chest and squeeze my breasts around it. Mistake. I start shuddering uncontrollably. I have to turn the damn thing off, fling it away from me, and hug my knees to my chest to stop shaking. After several minutes I finally do.

I open my eyes and look at the vibrator, looking a little forlorn at the corner of the bed. I don't know if I want to go on. The party next door is getting louder; a lot of laughing. I feel wetness between my legs, but also at the corners of my eyes. I'd better finish; what would be the point of stopping now?

I take up the vibrator, turn it on, and rub myself vigorously with it. I stick it in my cunt, although I don't really like this action all that much; but I'm pretty wide now, and feel it's something I should do. If I were with a real man, he wouldn't just want to rub his thing on me. But I take it out pretty quickly—too fast, for it makes an unpleasant sucking sound—and start rubbing again. I'm shuddering, moaning, almost grunting. I'm so worked up I don't notice the tears falling down my cheeks until one of them enters my mouth and gives me a start with its salty taste.

I open my eyes, suddenly confused. I don't know where I am or what I am doing. I look down at myself—at my hand holding this smooth plastic object that's buzzing like an angry bee. It's as if somebody else is doing all this. It's as if I'm somebody else. I'm almost about to stop when an explosion goes off simultaneously in my mind and my cunt.

I cry out. I throw the thing in my hand away from me; it clatters somewhere on the other side of the tiny room. I'm shuddering uncontrollably. I try to grab the wall, but there's nothing to hang on to. I have to close my eyes—I'm getting dizzy.

The shuddering is still going on—this has nothing to do with my climax, which is long over. Grabbing my knees doesn't seem to help any. It's like I'm having an epileptic fit. God, please stop! My heart is pounding as if it's going to burst out of my chest—it's like there's a little gremlin inside of me rattling the bones of my rib cage. I put one hand, then both hands, on my chest as if that might help some, but it doesn't; I only flatten one breast painfully.

Jesus, I think I'm going to die . . . Maybe it's better if I do. I try taking deep breaths, but at first I can't even breathe—an intake of breath makes a weird noise like a cotton blouse being ripped apart, and it feels like sandpaper in my throat. But finally I start breathing a little more regularly, and then more and more deeply.

After a few minutes I find I'm still shaking a little, but only in my hands. I'm lying on my back, and I place my hands under my bottom to stop the shaking, but it doesn't seem to help very much. I just try to relax—make myself feel boneless. I feel drenched; sweat is probably glistening all over my body, and if there were anyone to see—

Shut the fuck up. Don't say that.

I roll over on my side and bury my face in the pillow. I lie there for a while. It seems to have gotten dark all of a sudden. I haven't noticed the party noises for a while, but now I hear them again in a blare—as if someone suddenly turned on a radio just to shatter the silence. I don't dare close the window: that wouldn't help much anyway, and I'd suffocate in here without any air conditioning.

I get up in a kind of drugged trance and walk—still naked—into the other room. I hastily draw the shade there. I sit at the kitchen table; I think of fixing myself a cup of herbal tea, but the amount of effort that would take seems to overwhelm me. There's some ginger ale in the fridge, so I drink some of that.

I look around this grubby apartment and feel suddenly disgusted. I feel like a hamster in a cage that hasn't been cleaned lately. But the idea of going out fills me with a weird sort of horror. It's only a quarter after eight, and that somehow appalls me.

There's this little kernel of an idea that's lodged deep inside my brain. I don't want it to grow any larger, but it does. My hands start to shake again, so I grip the cold, half-empty glass, but that doesn't seem to help much; it only makes the shaking go up my arms into my shoulders.

Fuck this.

I reach behind me and thrust open a kitchen cabinet. I fish around utensils I almost never use, stupid little magnetized ornaments that people put on their refrigerators, and a confused assortment of bobby pins and paper clips. Yes, it's there. A tiny, ragged slip of paper. It's quite old, and the crease down the middle is so sharp it almost cuts my finger.

I open it up and place it before me. It's been creased so long that it immediately folds back. I have to bend it backward for it to stay open.

I stare at the ten numbers before me. Without moving my head I slowly extend my arm and grab the phone hanging on the wall. I'm still looking at the numbers; am fixated by them.

Now I'm fixated by the number pad of the telephone. It's all lit up, as if impatient to be used. My hands start to shake again, but I suspect I can't do anything about that now.

Suddenly I dial the last seven digits of that number. The phone emits a tune that's almost recognizable.

I hear the phone at the other end of the line ringing once. Ringing twice. Then it's picked up. Oh, God, maybe it'll just be an answering machine. Or maybe it'll be someone else altogether.

But it isn't.

"Yeah, Weav—"

That's all I hear before I slam the phone down, rush into the other room, and spend the rest of the evening sobbing on my bed.

David Phillips / June 16, 1995, 2:32 p.m.

I initially have difficulty finding the doorbell, since the bells don't seem to be arranged very logically. Finally I locate 1E. I press it.

Almost instantly a voice chirps: "Who is it?"

"David." I didn't see any reason to use a false name; I hadn't given my last name, anyway, and I'm sure she wouldn't have cared.

A buzzer goes off. I open the door and go in.

Now I'm beginning to remember. The door is immediately to the left after the short corridor. The door is slightly ajar, but I knock anyway. It opens.

"Hi!"

From speaking to Diane on the phone, I found her bright, well-educated, and sympathetic. But her resolute cheerfulness is already getting to be annoying. She's new; her predecessor I did not find entirely satisfactory.

But Diane is by no means young. Although shapely, she has telltale wrinkles around the eyes that show that she's probably close to forty, maybe older. I don't know why that should concern me. It doesn't, really.

We make idle chit-chat about the weather—what an early summer we're having, how nice it's cool in this little place, and on and on. The conversation seems rather unreal. No doubt she's trying to put me at my ease. Am I nervous? I don't seem to be; I feel actually rather flat and empty. But maybe I'm a little on edge; just because she's new.

While she's talking about something or other—I don't even know what—I pull out my wallet and hand her some bills. She immediately shuts up, counts the money quickly and expertly, and looks right in my eyes, saying: "So you want the full treatment?"

I just nod.

We begin talking off our clothes. She's naked in less time than it takes me to get my shirt and tie off. She's clearly experienced; must have come from some other establishment. Of course, she wasn't wearing much to begin with.

The room is incredibly small. A studio apartment, clearly, with barely enough room for a couch (where I dump my clothes), a tiny kitchen, tiny bathroom, a few closets, and the main attraction—a long tablelike bed with a thin sheet on it, such as one might find in a hospital examining room.

I know the procedure, although she's not done me before. After I'm naked I climb on to the bed and lie flat on my stomach. She goes to a tape player and puts on a tape; then she goes to the phone and flicks a switch so that the phone will not ring during the session. Very considerate of her.