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The act of never speaking

I hated that there was some distance—clearly miles and light years of distance—even though we sat next to each other nearly every day. I joked once that I was a mirage, and she said: ‘How absurd Mary, you’re right here’.

She was right, I was there, but when the talking hour ended, she was the first to leave. That evening, it was pasta. I had told her I didn’t really like pesto, twice I said that. When I sat on her chipped wooden chair while she talked and fixed me a plate, she said “I got this amazing pesto recipe, I think you’ll love it”. Her child was crawling now, so there were toys scattered in that apartment. I looked over at the little boy flailing his arms up and down while the big blue screen brightly hit his underdeveloped face—I could’ve sworn I saw his wispy brown hair turn white. She was younger than me, but a mother now. I had no intention of carrying a child anytime soon. She knew this, but still tried to convince me this was a feeling like no other. That the Earth grounded her, that her breasts were not painful, that her sleep was not that bad. But she didn’t ask why I didn’t want to have a child, or if I was able to at all. The ‘why’ is not a reciprocated question to me, even though it’s an entire sentence. Allow me to demonstrate:

‘I have a gnawing emptiness inside of me that tells me I’m a failure like my father was, my fear is to wake up and stop recognizing my own voice’

‘Why?’

See? Just like that, it’s a sentence that undoes them. Add a lean, look them in the eye, maybe a ‘hmm’ to master the art of giving a fuck. Anyway.

The dinner was not just a dinner, I knew that of course which is why I took a few minutes of deep preparation exhales before knocking her door (I had returned from lunch with the man I was seeing, and he’d poured himself over bread gone stale then ended crying on my lap. His residue was still stuck on me. I might’ve spoken fewer than twenty words that entire day, but not speaking was more tiring than saying anything at all). My plate was always emptied faster in any setting even though I’m quite a slow eater, mostly because whoever sitting across from me is speaking in tangled up sentences they can’t find a second to stuff their hole. I sometimes stall by taking an exceptionally slow sip of whatever we’re drinking. I’m not ashamed to say I tune it out. All of it. My mind stores it in the back, but it doesn’t filter it through my brain because I’m elsewhere.

I cannot remember the details of what she said because she says so much in so little time, and I know I have a standing appointment with her tomorrow to tell me more. It might’ve been a work dinner that had snarky passive-aggressive comments, or maybe her husband worked an extra shift—she hated it when he did that because he didn’t make enough for her to be okay with it.

When she does the dishes and I’m sitting cross legged with her little wide-eyed boy, she’s still talking. I know it doesn’t matter because I’m doing the annoying adult thing of speaking in a high-pitched voice to her kid, so I’m not engaged with whatever it is she’s saying, but she goes on.

“...nd so it just kept going, had I known that of course I wouldn’t recommend it. You ever read that book by the way?”

A question, the first one that evening. I don’t pay any attention because it’s not a real question. “Yes”

The ‘S’ is barely sounded because she cuts right back to her dialogue. “Right so you know how it goes. I just assumed she would know because she’s supposed to be…”

When the night is over, she says she had a great time. I hug her goodbye. The subway ride home is so exhausting I nearly fall asleep on the shoulder of a stranger. But city people don’t like it when you do that.

The tracks screech, I try to tune that out as well but my music isn’t loud enough. The hour is lawyers getting out of the tunnel half drunk after a long day of work o’clock. I was fired last night. I can’t relate to a hard day of work. I’m also moving to a new apartment, a cheaper one. The man I’m seeing doesn’t know my last name, but I’ve met his parents. And my roommate is sleeping with the man I was in love with a year ago—she doesn’t know I know and she forgets how thin the walls are. But it’s only after I’ve moved, after I’ve gotten a new job, and after I feel nothing will I tell someone. It’s much easier because I would have dealt with it. For now, as I deal and stuff my face with the gnawing voice of failure, they won’t need to know.

Once I’m over it, and I can be much more unaffected by whatever it is, will I tell them about it. Over dinner they told me they liked, because I remember they like Greek food more than Italian, and lemon scented candles in the background, I will suddenly just say “Oh and he broke up with me after I was fired.”

They will widen their eyes. Shock, horror and pity flash like a fast train, “Jesus Mary why didn’t you say anything?! Are you okay?”

I will nod as I pick out the peas from their plate, “Yeah I got a better job downtown, pays more. How’re you?”

A beat.

Then they start to speak again.