Page 55 of Woman on the Verge

He wore a white button-down shirt, a stark contrast with his darker skin. I decided, right then, that I would flirt with him. I would pretend to be a single, childless woman, a woman like Prisha.

“I’m Elijah,” he said, sticking out his hand at an awkward angle. I shook it at just as awkward an angle.

When I was a kid, playing pretend with the neighborhood kids, I always gave myself this one somewhat-exotic name. I hated my own name. Nicole. It was so boring, so common. I wanted a name that an interesting, important, gorgeous woman would have.

“I’m Katrina,” I said.

I especially liked that it came with a cute nickname—Kat.

When he smiled, there were dimples.

“You can call me Kat.”

Part 2

Chapter 10

Nicole

I am parked in front of Elijah’s apartment building. Or rather,Katrinais parked in front of Elijah’s apartment building. It’s outlandish, I know, creating this other person. It’s really no different from Grace prancing around the house calling herself Elsa and singing “Let It Go” at the top of her lungs. There are probably deep psychological problems afoot, “Katrina” being an attempt to compartmentalize my indiscretions, separate myself from the reality of what I’m doing. Yesterday, while lying in my childhood bed, unable to sleep, I googled my little heart out:split personality disorder,identity disorder,types of personality disorders,nervous breakdown, andam I crazy?What I’ve concluded is that no label fits perfectly, but yes, I am probably crazy. That word every woman hates to have applied to her may just be appropriate for me. Someday, when people find out what an awful person I am, they will come up with a new term named after me—Nicole syndrome. This will be a syndrome that makes mothers of small children with less-than-stellar husbands lose their wits and abandon their lives in times of crisis.

Just as I have the past two weekends, I drove up to Daly City yesterday. I spent today with my dad and Merry. Things continue to go downhill at an alarming rate. My dad cannot walk unassisted now. We have a hospice company involved. They are bringing a wheelchairto the house on Monday. Dad spends most of his time at the kitchen table, listening to music and “reading” the paper—in quotes because he mostly just stares at the pages, brows furrowed. Merry has a small whiteboard on the table in front of him with basic information on it—the date, the day of the week, any plans for the day. I asked him if it bothered him that he couldn’t remember these things on his own, and he said, “Nah, all that’s going to come back when I get better.”

It’s easy to be lulled by his overconfidence, to sink into the deliciousness of denial. Merry gives him these little cognition quizzes every now and then—“I’m going to give you a number to remember, okay?” She hasn’t given up hope. Before I left today, she gave him the number ten—“a nice, easy number,” she told him, placing the ball on the tee for him to hit out of the park. A moment later, she said, “Now what was that number?” and he said, “Thirty.”

My dad has always exuded warmth, but he’s especially sweet and kind now, almost childlike. When I gave him a hug this morning, he said, “Why don’t they do hugging in the hospital? It feels so nice.” It sounded like something Grace would say. I told him I agreed, then went to another room so he wouldn’t see me cry. When we ate lunch today, Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” came on, a gut punch that made me think Apple really is all-knowing, and my dad just hummed along with a dopey smile on his face. Merry told a couple of his golf buddies what was going on, and they’ve been visiting every day since.Randy and Al coming over—that was on the whiteboard this morning, and Dad said, “Why are they coming by?”

Merry said, “Because they know you’re sick and they care about you.”

He said, “They’re acting like I’m gonna croak.”

Sometimes I think he does know he’s going to die. On some level, at least. Maybe his memory loss is a blessing, the disease protecting him from the reality of its awfulness. Perhaps it is not a terrible fate that causes humans to suffer, but our ability to ponder it.

As much as I think it’s ridiculous that I am here, in front of Elijah’s apartment building, I also cannot wait to go in, to enter this other world, to be Katrina. I told Merry that I was meeting up with Prisha again. The last time, when I went home with Elijah, I’d texted Merry to say I was staying at Prisha’s place in the city, that I would stop by to see them in the morning before heading home. “I’ll probably go to Prisha’s place again,” I told her before heading out today. Prisha has become my alibi.

I knock at his door just once, and he opens it, as if he’s been standing directly on the other side, staring through the peephole.

“It’s you,” he says.

I’ve been hoping he won’t be as attractive as he was in my mind, but he is. I half expect him to see me and decide that this is all a bad idea, but his smile doesn’t falter. There is no discernible disappointment.

He wraps his arms around me, and that’s it—I have left everything behind, and I am Katrina. He has such strong arms, the arms of someone who goes to the gym religiously (which I have learned he does, thanks to our text conversations, which are most definitely out of control to the tune of hundreds of messages a day). He holds me so tight that he lifts me off the ground, my black ballet flats dangling from my toes. I’m not a small woman (five foot nine), but he is six foot three and makes me feel tiny, petite. I have never felt petite before. Kyle is exactly my height; I’ve never been able to look up to him.

When he puts me down, he kisses me, long and hard. Any second thoughts I had about coming here vaporize. He pulls me into the apartment and kicks the door closed behind us. We stumble to the bedroom, yanking at each other’s clothes.

“You have no idea how much I’ve been thinking about this,” he says.

“I think I do.”

We are breathless.

The sex is less tentative than last time, more decisive and forceful. We’ve been storing up desire for a week. We are desperate.

It is over in a matter of minutes, but I can’t say this disappoints me. Nothing is sexier than a man who can’t restrain himself.

“Sorry,” he says, burying his face into the pillow in dramatized shame.

“Why?”

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