I don’t trust older women who fall in love with me quickly. I come back before sunrise from the nightshift, and in the parking garage or the elevator, even though it feels like there are few humans left in the city, the men stay silent, rubbing their eyes.
The women are different. It starts out with a cordial, “Good morning,” and the next minute they’ve claimed the rest of the day when I should be sleeping. They take me under their wing, bestow life philosophies, feed me, show me their naked bodies, and tell me they love me, which comes out of nowhere given that these are platonic relationships. That’s a red flag.
When an older woman tells you she loves you within a week of knowing you, then it means stay the hell away. She’ll blow up at you with Latina fury, an ex-friend who suddenly turns from confidante to torturer.
I didn’t trust Lana. Her almond skin and ballerina arms were admirable, especially for a woman who claimed she was 61, but I kept her in perspective as “a character.” She greeted me, bubbly, and when I complimented her dress she went on about interior design
and the wondrous effects of yoga on old age. I listened, and then said goodbye and good day.
But, the next day, I was in her apartment. She insisted that I see how coating the walls with mirrors and curtains made her space look bigger. I didn’t intend to stay long. She caught me glancing at the photos on her fridge and from there she stood next to it like a
museum curator, walking me through her life in pictures.
I should’ve left. She was opening up. Danger danger, older lady love.
“I was a knock-out. Tall, big boobs, I looked older than I was.”
She pointed to the image of a girl who looked my age, 29, but Lana said was her at 13, standing in a row of teenagers at a bus stop, chin up, a poof of blond hair, tight-fitting shirt. I wanted her to keep talking. There are so few times when I really get to know a
person- I’ve had boyfriends for years that I never really knew. This was human intimacy- more intimate than touch or sex- and it was coming straight toward me, enveloping me.
“One day my father said, ‘Move your hips again, just like that.’ That’s when I discovered I had this power. Daddy would do whatever I wanted.”
I tried to find the appropriate response to inappropriate behavior. “Oh my god,” I said.
Then there was Lana on a grassy mountain, two children by her side. “Those are my babies. In the 70s, everything was love, free love. The younger one died eight years ago, in a car crash. It killed me.”
She showed me the knick in the door where firemen had to break into her apartment and pump pills out of her.
“My older daughter wouldn’t talk to me for a year. She was right. She had every right. She’d lost her sister and she was going to lose her mom.”
She showed me the tattoo on her tailbone. She told me that she’d survived breast cancer, and lifted up her shirt to show me her left nipple, “See, this one they redid so nicely, don’t you think?”
I lost track of time. I barely noticed the mirrors, the bright light on the silver walls, the patina white counter. The apartment was decorated, sure, but there was more than the sum of its parts. I closed the door. Not not only did the beauty cream smell suddenly fade, the air seemed thinner, and quiet. Sleeping seemed dull in comparison. Lana’s world was a tease, I was sure she would soon shut me out. The next time I saw Lana if she’d surely regret having told me all that, look at my face, be reminded of all the traumas I now knew, and blow up.
A few months later, she called to see if I was around the building. Here it was coming, the big break. She appeared, I braced myself for criticisms, but instead she swooped down while saying, “Can I get a hug?” muttered something about being in remission
from cancer, and disappeared.
At the end of the year, she asked me if I would pick her up from shoulder surgery. I was ready for Lana to needle at me for being late, lecturing me for my bad habits, but instead she sighed, “Thank you.” I ignited the engine like picking up my post-operative neighbors was something I do everyday, no big deal. She needed me to fill a bulky (discontinued) ice machine, but otherwise, she didn’t need me. Still, she laid back in bed and said, “I’m so lucky for you, what would I do without you.”
She offered me $100 to check on her everyday. I used the first day’s pay to buy flowers and after that declined. I looked forward to coming up, knocking carefully, opening the door and calling her name before I stepped in, as if the door weren’t always unlocked and
as if I didn’t already have the right to enter.
I stopped her after she said sentences like: “They could paint the vent on that roof a deep water blue with a cobalt blue trim, and surround it with pebbles. It would look like a Japanese sculpture.” I wrote these quotes down, and told her she was a poet.
“Really?” she blushed.
Sunday night, it was the time to take off her bandages. She sat on the toilet. The hair on her neck was caught up in the adhesive and I had to rip it all off. She flinched every time. I pulled.
“Should we take a break?”
“Keep going, get it over with,” she said. “I’m good at dealing with pain.”
I kept pulling the bandages but they were all tangled. Her body shivered.
“Do you need to take a break?” I asked again.
“No, rip harder, it’s okay.”
“I need to take a break,” I said and suddenly darted out of the bathroom. I wanted to
extend my arms back to Lana but my stomach was coming up into my chest. “I feel
nauseous, I don’t know why.”
“Maybe it’s the smell,” she said.
“What smell?” I came back into the bathroom and then I noticed it, the smell of dead flesh and formaldehyde. I pulled a couple bandages but had to run out again to catch more air and wait for my stomach to settle down. By the time I came back, Lana had ripped off the bandages herself, and just needed me to pull the needle with the anesthesia out of her shoulder.
I sat under her window. She lay on her bed. We took large gulps of ocean air, both exhausted from the corporal intimacy- oddly, a physical exhaustion and relief like two lovers after making love. She kept saying, “What would I have done without you?”
“I just realized why I’m so good at dealing with pain. I can detach from my body. When I was seventeen, I was gang raped- these guys pushed me into a motel room. Someone slammed a bottle on my head. I remember thinking, ‘This is it, the fight’s over.’ It’s not that what happened to me was a good thing, but they could never humiliate me. After they left I remember walking away with my dignity, I didn’t cry. It’s like walking by a storefront window, I’ve walked by and looked at it all the time, and now I think, ‘How have I walked by this for forty years? It’s not that I didn’t see it, I remember, it’s not a repressed memory or anything, I just didn’t feel it.”
She paused to breathe. How could she top that? How deep can a woman go into divulging herself before she reaches rock bottom? With most people, conversations for a few minutes suffice, fully clothed, no flesh and no poetry. This was what I was scared of, though- going to the other edge too fast, too soon. She’d given away me all her good stuff- there’d be no more left to divulge. But I imagined that inevitably, the profundity would thin out, and like most one-night stands, our relationship would probably be
suddenly reduced to “Hello” in the elevator.
Two weeks after that, she was on the street waiting for an Uber, dolled up to go to PT. I told her she looked radiant and she blew me a kiss. She left me gifts at my front door to thank me for being her nurse. A few weeks later, she showed me how well she could move her arm. And then, slowly, our communication petered off. There was no big blow out. There was no clash of women who had come too close too quick.
The women are different. It starts out with a cordial, “Good morning,” and the next minute they’ve claimed the rest of the day when I should be sleeping. They take me under their wing, bestow life philosophies, feed me, show me their naked bodies, and tell me they love me, which comes out of nowhere given that these are platonic relationships. That’s a red flag.
When an older woman tells you she loves you within a week of knowing you, then it means stay the hell away. She’ll blow up at you with Latina fury, an ex-friend who suddenly turns from confidante to torturer.
I didn’t trust Lana. Her almond skin and ballerina arms were admirable, especially for a woman who claimed she was 61, but I kept her in perspective as “a character.” She greeted me, bubbly, and when I complimented her dress she went on about interior design
and the wondrous effects of yoga on old age. I listened, and then said goodbye and good day.
But, the next day, I was in her apartment. She insisted that I see how coating the walls with mirrors and curtains made her space look bigger. I didn’t intend to stay long. She caught me glancing at the photos on her fridge and from there she stood next to it like a
museum curator, walking me through her life in pictures.
I should’ve left. She was opening up. Danger danger, older lady love.
“I was a knock-out. Tall, big boobs, I looked older than I was.”
She pointed to the image of a girl who looked my age, 29, but Lana said was her at 13, standing in a row of teenagers at a bus stop, chin up, a poof of blond hair, tight-fitting shirt. I wanted her to keep talking. There are so few times when I really get to know a
person- I’ve had boyfriends for years that I never really knew. This was human intimacy- more intimate than touch or sex- and it was coming straight toward me, enveloping me.
“One day my father said, ‘Move your hips again, just like that.’ That’s when I discovered I had this power. Daddy would do whatever I wanted.”
I tried to find the appropriate response to inappropriate behavior. “Oh my god,” I said.
Then there was Lana on a grassy mountain, two children by her side. “Those are my babies. In the 70s, everything was love, free love. The younger one died eight years ago, in a car crash. It killed me.”
She showed me the knick in the door where firemen had to break into her apartment and pump pills out of her.
“My older daughter wouldn’t talk to me for a year. She was right. She had every right. She’d lost her sister and she was going to lose her mom.”
She showed me the tattoo on her tailbone. She told me that she’d survived breast cancer, and lifted up her shirt to show me her left nipple, “See, this one they redid so nicely, don’t you think?”
I lost track of time. I barely noticed the mirrors, the bright light on the silver walls, the patina white counter. The apartment was decorated, sure, but there was more than the sum of its parts. I closed the door. Not not only did the beauty cream smell suddenly fade, the air seemed thinner, and quiet. Sleeping seemed dull in comparison. Lana’s world was a tease, I was sure she would soon shut me out. The next time I saw Lana if she’d surely regret having told me all that, look at my face, be reminded of all the traumas I now knew, and blow up.
A few months later, she called to see if I was around the building. Here it was coming, the big break. She appeared, I braced myself for criticisms, but instead she swooped down while saying, “Can I get a hug?” muttered something about being in remission
from cancer, and disappeared.
At the end of the year, she asked me if I would pick her up from shoulder surgery. I was ready for Lana to needle at me for being late, lecturing me for my bad habits, but instead she sighed, “Thank you.” I ignited the engine like picking up my post-operative neighbors was something I do everyday, no big deal. She needed me to fill a bulky (discontinued) ice machine, but otherwise, she didn’t need me. Still, she laid back in bed and said, “I’m so lucky for you, what would I do without you.”
She offered me $100 to check on her everyday. I used the first day’s pay to buy flowers and after that declined. I looked forward to coming up, knocking carefully, opening the door and calling her name before I stepped in, as if the door weren’t always unlocked and
as if I didn’t already have the right to enter.
I stopped her after she said sentences like: “They could paint the vent on that roof a deep water blue with a cobalt blue trim, and surround it with pebbles. It would look like a Japanese sculpture.” I wrote these quotes down, and told her she was a poet.
“Really?” she blushed.
Sunday night, it was the time to take off her bandages. She sat on the toilet. The hair on her neck was caught up in the adhesive and I had to rip it all off. She flinched every time. I pulled.
“Should we take a break?”
“Keep going, get it over with,” she said. “I’m good at dealing with pain.”
I kept pulling the bandages but they were all tangled. Her body shivered.
“Do you need to take a break?” I asked again.
“No, rip harder, it’s okay.”
“I need to take a break,” I said and suddenly darted out of the bathroom. I wanted to
extend my arms back to Lana but my stomach was coming up into my chest. “I feel
nauseous, I don’t know why.”
“Maybe it’s the smell,” she said.
“What smell?” I came back into the bathroom and then I noticed it, the smell of dead flesh and formaldehyde. I pulled a couple bandages but had to run out again to catch more air and wait for my stomach to settle down. By the time I came back, Lana had ripped off the bandages herself, and just needed me to pull the needle with the anesthesia out of her shoulder.
I sat under her window. She lay on her bed. We took large gulps of ocean air, both exhausted from the corporal intimacy- oddly, a physical exhaustion and relief like two lovers after making love. She kept saying, “What would I have done without you?”
“I just realized why I’m so good at dealing with pain. I can detach from my body. When I was seventeen, I was gang raped- these guys pushed me into a motel room. Someone slammed a bottle on my head. I remember thinking, ‘This is it, the fight’s over.’ It’s not that what happened to me was a good thing, but they could never humiliate me. After they left I remember walking away with my dignity, I didn’t cry. It’s like walking by a storefront window, I’ve walked by and looked at it all the time, and now I think, ‘How have I walked by this for forty years? It’s not that I didn’t see it, I remember, it’s not a repressed memory or anything, I just didn’t feel it.”
She paused to breathe. How could she top that? How deep can a woman go into divulging herself before she reaches rock bottom? With most people, conversations for a few minutes suffice, fully clothed, no flesh and no poetry. This was what I was scared of, though- going to the other edge too fast, too soon. She’d given away me all her good stuff- there’d be no more left to divulge. But I imagined that inevitably, the profundity would thin out, and like most one-night stands, our relationship would probably be
suddenly reduced to “Hello” in the elevator.
Two weeks after that, she was on the street waiting for an Uber, dolled up to go to PT. I told her she looked radiant and she blew me a kiss. She left me gifts at my front door to thank me for being her nurse. A few weeks later, she showed me how well she could move her arm. And then, slowly, our communication petered off. There was no big blow out. There was no clash of women who had come too close too quick.
