Chloe Caldwell [Chloe Caldwell] - Women

Contents

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018

Copyright Chloe Caldwell 2014

Cover design and illustration
by Anna Morrison

Chloe Caldwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008254919

Ebook Edition August 2017 ISBN: 9780008254926

Version: 2018-02-01

For my mother, Michele
And in loving memory of Maggie Estep

Girls are cruelest to themselves.
Anne Carson, The Glass Essay

What I know for certain about this time: My pupils were expanding. I never figured out if this was a symptom of falling in love or a side effect of the Chinese herbs my transgender friend Nathan was hooking me up with. Either way, I was stoked because I read an article that explained you are perceived as prettier when your pupils are dilated. A few years later, my pupils have shrunk back to their regular size, staring back at me, sometimes small as pinheads, each morning. But I dont take the Chinese herbs anymore either, so, who can really know.

Sometimes I wonder what it is I could tell you about her for my job here to be done. I am looking for a shortcut something I could say that would effortlessly untangle the ball of yarn I am trying to untangle here on these pages. But that would be asking too much from you. It wasnt you who loved her, or thought you loved her. I wonder what I could write that would help you to understand that it is profoundly easy to fall in love with an olive-skinned woman that touches you just so, and who has a tattoo of a quote from Orlando trailing down her back. Show me your tattoo again, Id say in bed. Shed pull up the bottom of her shirt, and Id trace my fingers over the cursive words by Virginia Woolf that read: Love, the poet said, is a womans whole existence.

My mother still lives in the house in which I was raised a woodland cottage in a small hamlet in the country. As a child, I adored the woods and spent the days playing in streams, sitting on my singing rock making up songs, crowning my head with dandelions and using berries as lipstick. I loved chewing on mint leaves and chives. My mom showed me how to soak Queen Annes lace in food coloring overnight and wed wake in the morning to bright pink and blue flowers. We often took walks in the woods, sometimes together, sometimes alone. In my teenage years, it was inevitable that after an argument, the door would slam and one of us would trudge off toward the woods. When I was sixteen, a lesbian couple in their forties built a house across the woods from us. This was significant as wed never had any neighbors. The woods behind the house were chaotic. Walking through you were bound to return home with scratches and tick bites. But when the lesbians moved in, they landscaped the woods so that there would be a loop on which they were able to walk their dogs. Right away, my mom took to walking the circle as well. Wed leave notes for each other on the kitchen counter, Went to walk the circle. The lesbians were an intriguing couple, one was wealthy and of some notoriety, the other a struggling artist. My mom often chided me when I was a teenager for calling them the lesbians but the only reason I called them that was because she did.

Ten years later, in late summer, some nights before I move out of my mothers house, she takes a gig dog sitting the lesbians poodles, and I join her. We pack overnight bags and cut through the woods to their home. Their house is something out of Home & Gardening magazine. There have been articles written about the house describing how it is non-toxic and cutting-edge. While the sun goes down, we sit outside, marveling at the view, drinking expensive wine from their wine cellar and eating their exotic cheeses. While we have a warm buzz, we get the idea to pull the pillows off of the lounge chairs, lug them up the hill. We lie on our backs, giggling, looking at the stars, pointing out constellations. I remember thinking to myself that this was one of the best nights Id ever spent with my mother. I felt content in her company, like there was no one else Id rather be with. As though I never wanted to leave. But a few days later, I left. I boarded a plane and was gone.

Your book was amazing. These were the first words Finn said to me. She wrote them on my Facebook wall when I still lived with my mother. Id been visiting Finns city frequently, to see friends and attend literary events, but Finn and I had not yet met in person. We began emailing, discussing books and authors we loved and didnt. I enjoyed our back and forth; she was witty and verbose. There was talk of meeting for coffee together on my next visit. I would be in town to do a reading that summer. My mother was coming with me we were making a mini-vacation out of it.

We never did get coffee that summer, but Finn attended my reading. I took a photograph of her. Wed barely talked thirty seconds and looking back I find it odd I would take a picture of someone I did not know, while they were not looking. I carry the image of her from that day in my mind. Cocky smirk of a smile. Slouched posture. Mens jeans that looked both broken-in and new. A long-sleeved shirt, soft, semi-fitted. A baseball hat. Arms crossed against her chest. Sneakers. Leaning her weight back onto one foot. Shed come alone to the reading. The sun is hitting her face and the grass shes standing on is bright green. In the photograph, I can see half of my mothers body shes standing just a foot away from Finn, though they never met. I do not remember who introduced Finn and me, if we were introduced. I do not remember what Finn said to me and I do not remember what I said to her. I do remember I was flirtatiously calling her by both her first and last name. Id been drinking wine with my mom before the reading, and continued to drink at the park to calm my nerves. When the reading ended, I watched her saunter off. The weather was impeccable, I was drunk, and she somewhat intrigued me. The next morning, Finn emailed to say that she had loved my reading; that I should do more readings. I do not know where this photograph is though I have spent time searching for it. By the time this book is published, the photograph will be three years old.

Three months after I took the photograph, I moved to the city Finn lived in for various reasons, none of them Finn. I needed a change I was becoming a bit too comfortable living at home, and pain pills were becoming a casual part of my life, too easy to find in my small town. I was snorting opiates a few times a week and hating myself for it. Moving to a new city meant an absence of drug connections. Id also met a guy named Isaac through a mutual friend, and wed begun dating long-distance. I knew I wouldnt be with Isaac forever as we didnt have a passionate connection. We were quite different. For one, he didnt do opiates, he was more interested in sports than books, but he was kind and smart and I wanted to surround myself with drug-free people. We enjoyed each other, and the relationship was benign, and I thought it would be good for me. He offered for me to stay with him until I found a place of my own, and I took him up on it.