Impact 25: of Vesseling

For those reading in real time: I've made changes to the previous chapter (i24) after receiving some helpful comments about the opening of that installment. The changes aren't huge or radical but they are material. I am posting this chapter now that those revisions have been published. I am grateful for everyone's input. I believe the story has been improved by our exchanges.

Thanks to HaltWhoGoesThere for copy editing.

Impact of Vesseling

I jerked awake, my body rigid with fear. The nightmare was still gripping me.

It had all been

so real.

Stephanie's teeth had flashed and snapped dangerously close to my face. Flecks of her spit had sprayed my eyes as she barked and screamed in German. Danny had been swinging his arms wildly. I had

felt

his fists whipping past the side of my face fast enough to break bones.

My heart was beating so fast my chest ached, the sheet beneath me was stuck to my skin, soaked with sweat. Afterimages of the violence played in the dark, their swears rang in my ears. But I couldn't move, because even as the nightmare's spell faded, a new terror was taking its place.

My room was... wrong.

I could feel the space around me, feel it as it

should

be. I

knew

where everything was. I

knew

the narrow bed was pressed into the corner, against the wall. I

knew

it! Likewise, I

knew

where the window and door were... or, I knew where they

should

be, but my eyes were wide with new terror. What light there was, was coming from an impossible direction. There were too many shapes and too many shadows.

Paralyzed by fear, eyes frozen in my skull, I tried to desperately understand what I was seeing. I could see two doors rather than one... Nothing I saw made sense.

All around me unfamiliar things, where nothing

should

be. The unfamiliar things were cut by harsh streetlights where no streetlights should be and from windows where no windows

could

be.

A profile of streetlight I was staring at began to resolve itself as a pale gabled shape - strangely ribbed - like a bony roofline floating in the darkness. The sloping extrusion was framed by thick black lines that looked to be drawn in air... And then I finally

saw

it and felt my body unwind in relief.

I was looking at Claire's rolling rack!

The empty hangers were all pushed together, forming a single bony slope catching the low light. The blonde wood shoulders of the hangers seemed to glow, weightless in the dark. The black iron hanging rack was nothing more than flat lines - like a child's drawing in space.

'One hundred and two...'

I took a long juddering breath and listened to my heart's panicked drumming begin to slow. I had woken up from one nightmare directly into another. For awful seconds, that felt like an eternity, I had been back in Stephanie's apartment, in that bare box of a bedroom with its single window facing a narrow shaft. That thin wall next to my bed, with her on the other side.

The horror was having to face Stephanie's contempt, that I would have to apologize to Danny and my mother and his mother...

None of it was true. I was alone, in my own bed, there had been no fight. No one was angry at me. Stephanie and Danny were both behind me, long in my past and far away. They couldn't reach me anymore, it was all a dream. I could finally move. I pushed my face into my pillow, drawing a deep breath, trying to find Claire's reassuring scent. I was still shaking.

I reached out and turned the clock to face me, it was four in the morning.

My head throbbed but my pulse was slowing down. My heart was slowly relaxing. My chest no longer ached. I lay there in the dark looking at the time. I knew I'd regret it later if I didn't get back to sleep. The dream still felt very close, however - like if I just closed my eyes I would again be in that other room in that other bed, with all those other anxieties.

Thoughts and images - of Stephanie and snapping teeth, of Danny and swinging fists - were spinning around my head in obsessive loops. I turned on my light and looked around my bedroom, taking comfort from the bright familiarity - from

my

things, from their arrangement in

my

space -

my

doors and

my

windows.

The huge Shakespeare In The Park poster for The Public Theater's production of

Julius Caesar

covered most of one wall. Even in the dark, I could see the bloody fist, raised in defiance- or maybe one last agony. Paula gave me that poster. I was so excited to carry l back to my sublet. The oversized roll clutched in my arms. I was excited to hang it on my bedroom wall - to give myself something to look at in that vacant room. But Stephanie had seen what I was doing and warned me against making holes in the wall.

Rather than risk losing part of my deposit, I rolled the poster back up, leaving my bedroom's walls depressingly blank.

It had been years since Stephanie had a hold on me, but she could still haunt my thoughts. Even fully awake I could feel the limits of that depressing little room I rented from her like an invisible box all around me.

I sighed and pushed myself out of bed. My mind was already spinning at full speed, better to just start my day - to think about work. Better that I focused my energies on the fucking mess Ben and I walked away from in exhaustion the night before.

My steps were a little uneasy as I made my way to the kitchen, turning on lights.

My apartment wasn't ornate, but my fifth-floor walk-up was the Palace of Versailles compared to that little box of a room. Stephanie's building had been old, but her apartment had been freshly renovated. Everything had had the same hollow sheetrock anonymity of recent construction. The common spaces had been cheery with her furniture and things, well-lit and airy - so it didn't matter.

My old tenement's plaster and lath walls were wavy and cracked and imperfect, but intact and wonderful in their particularity. The stove and refrigerator were new-ish, but otherwise, my little studio was a time capsule.

It had modest ornamental flourishes that I absolutely

loved!

The deep picture rails that ringed the rooms below the ceilings and the high skirting boards that circled the floors both had fussy old-fashioned profiles. Likewise, the carved moldings around the doors and windows. Then there was the funny little stick-and-ball spandrel that decorated the overhead space separating the living room and the tiny kitchen...

I was distracting myself with nonsense.

My Starbucks wouldn't be open for another hour and a half... Jesus, why do I

know

that?

I loaded the espresso maker and set it on the stove. Leaning against the sink I can feel the last wisps of sleep and the nightmare lifting from me. Just the smell of the coffee helps. I've already lost the particulars of the dream. With a little effort, I can make myself forget the rest.

I pushed myself to picture Keith's whiteboard, the to-do list Ben and I had made before we left... we had listed a lot of tasks I knew I could get done by myself, fast.

Ben arrived before eight and was impressed when I showed him how much I'd gotten done.

"When did you get in?!"

"Hump day!" I cheered. I was on my second cup of coffee from the grab-and-go cafe on the third floor - the only one that had been open when I got in.

Ben looked at me suspiciously.

"What time did you get in?"

"Too early," I admitted, turning my monitor so he could see what I was working on. We weren't ready to go live, but the version I was running was no longer a garbled mess.

"Holy shit. Sarah!"

We went through my work. I was energized by Ben's reaction. He was blown away.

"You must have gotten in at five?!"

"Pretty much," I conceded. My first half hour reading through and answering condolences didn't count.

I should have just posted to Facebook the obituary I wrote with my mother at the same time we sent it to

The Western New York Catholic

and

The Buffalo News...

but instead, I'd put it off.

I had put it off the night before as well. I had been too tired when I got home to even open my email, much less to sort and read the condolences. The first thing I did when I arrived that morning was to open my email. I'd received more overnight, almost all the condolences were Brown connections, but there were some odd, non-Brown connections too.

There were also a lot of Facebook alerts, so I went there. And sure enough, my friends had been leaving condolence messages on my most recent post - which was a picture the waiter at Frankie's had taken. That dinner seemed like a million years ago, a whole different lifetime. Kwasi was in the center of the picture. Sitting at the head of the table looking very pleased with himself. And why not? He was surrounded by beautiful women. On either side of him, leaning in to be seen, we were all smiling. Rebekah and I were cheek to cheek. We looked ecstatic.

I quickly "liked" all the comments people had left, and then started a new post. I used the picture of me and my dad on the rocket slide and captioned it with a shortened version of the obit.

Before leaving Facebook, I clicked over to Claire's page. I had had to convince her to open an account.

"Everyone is on it!" I told her. She had laughed and teased me.

"Everyone?!?"

she chided.

"Not old people," I'd conceded dryly.

"Little bitch!" she laughed in outrage, but she had joined!

She still wasn't very active, but I was excited to see she had posted pictures from Fire Island. I hadn't noticed before because she didn't tag me. There were pics of us eating ice cream, Claire and the Bobs playing monkey in the middle, Kip in the Pink Beast, me lying on my stomach, making eyes at the camera... topless. You couldn't see my nipples, but I was

very

topless. Maybe that's why she didn't tag me... Although it was more likely she just didn't know how.

The post had a lot more likes than I expected. I liked it too then clicked over to see her friends. She had connected to a bunch more people since the last time I checked. I recognized a couple of the girls from the gallery, Jessica, the bride-to-be, people I didn't recognize. Looking through the pics I was especially interested in the men, anxious I might find her ex, Bernard, but he wasn't there.

'I am being silly,' I realized. Claire had told me he was much older than her. 'Old people aren't on Facebook!' I reminded myself.

I found myself checking her relationship status. It said single... so was mine.

'I really do need to deal with the emails!' I told myself.

I closed Facebook and spent a few minutes composing a boilerplate reply - that my father would be missed and that it meant a great deal to me and my family to hear from everyone, how much I appreciated their kind words, blah blah blah...

For most of my replies, I just copied and pasted that generalized response, but a few required more attention.

I spent a longer time on my reply to Rebekah and Ali, who had both been emailing me in the aftermath of their visit and had been blindsided by the news. They had written to me separately to give their condolences but I replied to them together. I apologized for having not written sooner, letting them know that I loved reconnecting with them, that they both meant the world to me, that I was sorry they hadn't found the news out from me, and how grateful I was to them both for thinking of me now.

I didn't write to them as a couple - not exactly. Rebekah was married after all, but in my mind, they were linked... at least for now.

The other reply that I ended up spending the most time composing was Darci's.

She had been the very first to comment about my father's death on the Frankie's post. Some of the non-Brown emails I'd gotten were from people who had heard via Facebook, but most everyone who emailed me didn't mention Facebook, if they mentioned anything they mentioned Darci - like my professors but friends and faculty from The Round too... It was clear she was the one who had been spreading the word.

The comment Darci had left on Facebook was brief but eloquent. The email she sent was much longer. It was compassionate and even sentimental. She acknowledged that she and Kwasi had split, told me how much she loved me and valued our friendship, and how much she hoped we would "stay close". From anyone else, I might have cried. From Darci...

I was fucking seeing red.

Even after the heartbreak of Rebekah and the humiliation of Stephanie, when Darci began to show interest in me I had thrown myself at her, holding nothing back. Not for a second did I protect myself from her. Instead, I exposed myself totally. I told her things I hadn't told anyone else at Brown, anyone else at all. I must have been like a puppy the way I mooned over her. I remember friends accusing me of snubbing them because I spent all my time with her. I had been in love with her and she had known. How couldn't she?

And when she wanted Kwasi to watch me lick her pussy "like a bitch", I did it. I had been so happy doing it. I had wanted her to see how excited I was, how badly I wanted to please her. I didn't care that my best friend was watching. I would have done it in front of everyone. If, instead of kissing her, I had been dared to lick her pussy, I would have done it.

She used me that night, then just shut me out, like I was nothing.

I have no idea what she was up to with her flowery condolences, what she thought she was achieving by spreading the word; what any of it might mean to her. Maybe she just wanted to be a part of the drama? I didn't care, because I

knew

how she really felt about me. I

knew

that she had been talking about me behind my back

for fucking years

- all the time keeping me at arm's length, humiliated and lovesick. She had seethed with resentment and jealousy, but never to my face. She didn't even show me the courtesy of hating me openly. Whatever fucked up shit she was up to, her email smacked of self-aggrandizing passive-aggressive emotional manipulation.

'She's fucking love bombing me,' I realized.

I wrote and rewrote my reply to her a half dozen times. I accused, name-called, and vented years' worth of confusion and hurt, but in the end, my full reply read:

"Thanks for reaching out."

'The "BITCH" is silent,' I told myself.

I didn't even sign my name. The unsaid should, I felt, be more than clear enough. And if she didn't understand where it was coming from, let her take a turn being confused.

'Fuck you and your agenda very much, Darci, whatever it is.' I was crying as I pressed send. As it turned out, her reply was the only one that made me cry.

Keith arrived about an hour after Ben. He apologized for sleeping late even though it was still well before nine when he got in. He had kicked Ben and me out at eleven the night before, saying we all needed sleep.

We showed Keith what I'd done.

Ben had already combed through my code, cleaning it up and debugging it. Something I appreciated, Ben would never just fix the problems he found when he checked my code. Instead, he would go through, sometimes line by line, explaining what he saw and why he liked it or didn't like it. There was lots of grunting and grumbling. When he spoke it was usually to say "pretty" or "not pretty" - but when he changed anything he would explain the fix - usually pointing out how much more "pretty" or "elegant" or "less ugly" the fix was.

Rather than use my Zaha code as a template, Ben had decided to use a JavaScript library called

D3.

The substitution had made everything a little more difficult, because

D3

was brand new to both of us, but after two days of banging on it together - and then the patching and trimming, and loading in data sets I'd done that morning - it had finally produced dynamic, interactive data visualizations that looked great across browsers. Working with Ben was like a master class in coding - taught by a rumbly brown bear.

Evidently, Keith had gone home the night before discouraged about our chances of finishing on time, but after we took him through the new work had changed his mind.

"We can do this!" he said, as much to himself as to Ben and I.

By mid-morning, I was flagging. I took orders from Ben and Keith, explaining that Starbucks wasn't open yet when I came in.

"Jesus,Sarah, what time did you get in?"

"Too early -

luckily!"

Ben laughed.

I smiled and bowed to him. It felt good to have impressed him.

Even though we were trapped inside, we all wanted various iced coffee drinks. The drink

run would clear my foggy head.

It was too hot out, and I had had too little sleep. I had had violent nightmares two nights in a row. Even if I couldn't remember, I knew what they were both about. Walking crosstown I remembered that fraught summer. How hard I had wanted to impress Stephanie, how shocked I'd been by Danny's rejection of the city, and how total the city's rejection of him had been.

"What kind of fucking animal SHITS IN A CAR?" he'd cried, blindly swinging his fists so fast and hard I was afraid he might hit his windshield or car door and break his hand.

"FUCK THIS FUCKING SHITHOLE!!!" he bellowed at the skyline, before finally turning on me.

"This is what you WANT?

THIS?"

he spat, gesturing with his fists at the turd, at me, and the city behind me. "You want to live LIKE THIS?!? In this fucking shithole? WITH THESE FUCKING ANIMALS?!?"

I had tried to convince him to drive the car back to my block. I'd offered to clean the shit and glass for him but he was done. He rolled down the remaining windows, wrapped his face in a t-shirt, and peeled out with the thief's stinking turd riding shotgun. I had had to jump out of the way of the fishtailing Charger, had been left crying in the street, choking in a dense cloud of burnt rubber.

He never did tell me when or where he finally stopped to clean the shit off his passenger seat, but he did admit regretting not accepting my offer of help. From what I could glean from his mother he had driven hours before he found a place to pull over and get rid of the turd, and then had to make a couple more stops to find cleaning supplies and deodorizer. As it was, he drove the whole way home with the windows down and his face wrapped in a t-shirt. His mom said nothing she did could get the smell out. He sold the Charger a few weeks later.

I get why he was mad, but no one should ever be left to cry themselves hoarse in the shadow of the FDR.

When I got back to the apartment, tear-streaked and red-eyed, Stephanie was awake and watching television.

She was drinking a tall glass of whole milk, her preferred hangover cure. But she was wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt over her translucent underpants - not her usual

morning after

gear, which left NOTHING to the imagination. She was sitting on the couch Indian style, but the shirt was long enough to cover her crotch. Perhaps this rare concession to modesty was a nod to the fact that I had a gentleman visitor. After all, for all she knew Danny was meant to have returned with me.

Either way, she hardly even glanced up at me, which I was thankful for, since I was a puffy mess. I hated the idea of her seeing me that way.

I faced away from her while I closed and locked the door, then ducked my head and turned my face away as much as I dared, making a beeline for the bathroom. I took a cold shower, letting the water wash away my tears, but I also hoped to chill any inflammation. I made a basin of my hands, and let the water cool my hot face. There was nothing to do if my eyes were bloodshot, but hopefully, they wouldn't be puffy and swollen.