The Textures of Waiting

Mar 26, 2008 - 12:37 PM PST

It was the hottest day of the year and we had no air conditioner. We lied on the living room carpet in our bras and panties, our limp hair spread across the floor as our one brave little fan struggled against the humid air all morning long.
Calliope slowly turned her head towards me. The air was so thick I could feel her breath cut through it.
“You know what’s wrong with me?” she asked.
“I don’t know . . . You’re overheated?”
She sighed, and I shivered. Her breath was only a few degrees cooler than the actual temperature in the room, but its rustling across my body felt like rolling into stiff new sheets.
“My problem is that I’m too invested in the wait.”
“The wait?”
“Yea. I get so hyped up waiting for something that when it comes I don’t care. Then I feel all deflated after it’s done.” With this she breathed in deep, her stomach’s skin stretching up over her ribs; I wanted to tap each one to hear what tune she’d play. “Like, I enjoy dressing up for a party more than I like going to a party. So you see that’s why I never go out anymore.”
“But you were never much of a party person,” I argued, “and there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling that way.”
I rolled onto my back. The popcorn covered ceiling seemed to vibrate with the heat and I wondered if the weary walls would crack and bury us with its crumbled load.
“Well, it’s other things too,” she went on, “it seems I don’t enjoy anything. I like Advent better than Christmas . . .”
“Who wouldn’t prefer 25 days of Christmas over just one?”
The popcorn in the ceiling seemed to burst.
“That’s not why I prefer it though. I just like the wait.”
The fan sputtered a bit.
“I mean right now it’s 10AM and 90 degrees; I’m so hot that my spit sticks to the roof of my mouth like toilet paper on a stiletto some drunken Saturday night, but all I can think about is how much hotter it’ll be at noon. It makes the backs of my knees tingly just thinking about it. But I know come noon I’ll just be miserable. And I’ll smell bad.”
She flipped onto her stomach and traced the lines in the carpet. I turned to my side. The shoddy gray rug itched my bare skin; by tonight my elbows would be red and bumpy.
“I don’t think you’ll smell bad. It’s not like you don’t wear deodorant or something.”
She smiled at this and for a moment we seemed to forget the heat. For awhile we just lied still, our sweat, our breath, and our thoughts all mingling in the morning dust that hovered above our heads.
“I think,” Calliope began after a bit, “I think I got lead poisoning as a child.” She pushed her moist bangs off her glistening forehead. “I used to gnaw on the windowsills. We had an old Cape Cod house. It used to be rented out as a summer home long before we moved in. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t any lead there.”
“Well, you may be right Calliope, but I still don’t think you have lead poisoning.”
“I still think I have a problem,” she said. Suddenly I felt her wet palm on my shoulder. I turned my head to see her staring at me in a way I’d never noticed before. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong with me then?”
I put my sweaty hand over hers.
“Your only problem is that you think way too much.”
Calliope’s eyebrows pushed up the skin on her forehead.
“How can you think too much? Aren’t we always thinking? If that’s my only problem then I’m glad.”
“Why?”
“Because having no thoughts are like . . . like having no textures.”
“Textures?”
“Yea. Textures.”
I scratched my head.
“Well, thinking is okay . . . Just don’t be so negative.”
“I can’t help being negative. I actually kinda like being negative.”
“Why in the hell is that?”
“Because then I have something to look forward to.”
“And that is . . .”
“The positive.”
“And we’re back to the waiting thing again.”
“I can’t help it. I think I got lead poisoning as a child.”
“I know, you told me. You gnawed on windows . . .”
At this we both fell silent again.
We spent the rest of that morning pressed against the dirty carpet, tasting the textures of waiting . . .