Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls(52)

You know what you’re doing? she asks.

I think so, I say.

You think so?

I think I can manage.

Have you fucked a woman before?

No. I regret the truth as soon as it comes.

Lennox is silent. She stares at my ceiling, covers her face with her hands. She laughs a little, the sound muffled.

Sweetheart, you’re sweet. But I can’t be with someone who’s never fucked before. Are you for real?

I mean. I—

I’ve fucked at least four of my friends. You haven’t?

No. I shake my head. I don’t have friends like that.

Whatever’s happening here, she says. Let’s pretend it’s not happening.



In the Keys, my parents take me deep-sea fishing. I drug myself with Dramamine, because I know how this will go. I always get seasick, but my father is a fan of exposure therapy, excess of anything until the fear passes. I have used wristbands, medicines, oils, the horizon. Still, I am sick for days.

Back in the condo, my father watches the Sunday game. The rest of the family is back out on the boat, but I can’t move.

I thought it’d be different by now, he says, shaking his head. Sorry, Kira Kukamonga. He calls his bookie, and I rest my head in his lap. The shoulder pads on television spiral in and out of my vision. The noise is too much for me. This is MadMan46, let’s go two-thou on the Steelers, he says into the phone. He strokes my hair. Hangs up and slams the cellphone into the table.

I stare at the hammerhead shark mounted above the TV. The eyes are bulging; the mouth looks like it was painted with birthday cake frosting. It’s the same shark David has mounted to the wall in his apartment, the shark he swore he once caught.

Daddy, I want to tell you something, I say.

This quarter’s almost over, he says.

I’m dating a girl, I say.

What’s that? he stares into the television. His knees bouncing under my head. He leans with the play. Go baby, go!

I’m dating a girl, I say. She’s coming to town for New Year’s—she’s from here. Maybe you could meet her.

What’s that? he says.

I want you to meet her, this girl I am dating. She’s coming to town.

She hot? he asks.

She is.

She can come around then, he says, eyes still on the screen. But I wouldn’t mention this to your mother.



For my tenth birthday, my mother bought me a Barbie doll who could talk. All I had to do was type her dialogue into a computer program, plug Barbie in, and on she went. I typed and typed.

Leonardo, baby, take me to dinner?

Yes, anything, I said, stroking her ponytail with my thumb.

Leonardo, be my man?

It’s because of that boy in Titanic, my mother explained to my father, smiling. She loves him.

Leonardo. Leonardo. Leonardo. Leonardo. Sometimes I didn’t feed Barbie any questions. Sometimes I just wanted to look at her while she called me that.



I’m finally picking up the rest of my things from David’s West Village home; it’s been five months since our breakup. David is ten years older than me, but he has never used the kitchen of his studio apartment, he never learned to cook, so he uses this area for extra coat racks and shoe storage. I open his oven to look for my clothes. His sink is clogged, full of bong water.

On the counter, next to a sock, two wine glasses. Lipstick prints. I smudge the color with my finger and rub the waxy red on my own lips. My clothes are scattered around the apartment, and I’m surprised by how little I feel. I feel distant, like I’m observing the artifacts, the evidence, of somebody else’s relationship, somebody else’s life.

Downstairs, I wobble with the bags of clothing, my purse, a backpack full of toiletries. I drop everything into the snow and hail a cab. I tell the driver to take me to my parents’ apartment on Mercer Street.

In the cab, I call Lennox. I did it, I say. Finally. Nothing left.

I hope they’re happy together, she says.

I’m laughing about this. About the years I wasted on David and David’s cocaine habit. David’s bad spelling, and his job as a “Gentlemen’s Club” director. David’s secret JDate account and fetish chatrooms, the way he sang Bowie’s Oh, oh, my little China Girl into my ear when he first picked me up, at eighteen, outside a nightclub in the Meatpacking District. I am laughing into the phone until there’s a screaming of tires, a horn, then another, the driver’s voice—Please don’t, I can’t get in trouble, Here, Go, Stay—a hospital, a nurse—hit the glass divider, you’re at St. Vincent’s, you’re okay—and my father’s voice and my mother’s voice—You didn’t get his cab number?—and my suede boots, freckled bloody, they look so filthy against the sheets, a wheelchair, a flashlight in the eyes—The driver, he dropped her and fled—Where are my bags? Where are my things?—The driver—do you remember his name?—my bags in the hospital trashcans. What about my phone? I just want Lennox there, on the other end.

My mother stays with me in the hospital. She wheels me around each floor. She takes me into the hospital cathedral because the lights aren’t as bright in there. She massages my neck.

Daddy and I have that big trip to China, she says. Do you want us to cancel?

I’m okay, I say.

Can any of your friends come over, take care of you? Why were you leaving David’s apartment?