You Are Here - A Bed Big Enough for All of Us

I had wanted to sleep with Will for some time; not merely because his full lips and firm arms reminded me of tangled sheets and arching backs, but because he had a way of blushing when I caught him staring at my tits that made me blush, too. He lived with a friend of mine, Chloe, and every time I was at their house, he’d join us for a glass of wine or a Scotch neat on the back porch. He wrote computer code: not just professionally, but also as a hobby. He believed that when his body dies, he will have found a way to electronically maintain his consciousness in a computer, floating somewhere in space, perpetually aware.

One time I asked him on a date and he pawed the earth beside his front door step with the toe of his sneaker, shoved his hands in his pockets, looked anywhere but at me. “I don’t really want a girlfriend right now,” he mumbled, his ears’ tips turning pink. “I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. I just don’t have time for those things, the attention, the… Well, I don’t have time. Sorry.” It was a week before he’d resume joining us, Chloe and I, and a few more weeks before he addressed me directly again.

Chloe was an embalmer by trade and worked weird hours sometimes at a funeral home north of the city. One time she let me sneak in to watch her “do a prep” in the early hours of a Sunday morning and the body, I mean the man she was working on, was old and bloated and his veins were all distorted and difficult to access because of the chemotherapy he’d been on for so long. “Liver cancer,” she guessed, noting the yellow tinge of his epidermis. She massaged his body as she drained the blood from his arteries, forcing great waves of sanguine to rush out of the places she’d opened up on his neck; some blood escaped his nostrils and tinted his white mustache pink, and that same pink tone—the exact same—was the color Will turned any time I complimented him.

It wasn’t that I wanted to have Will as a boyfriend, exactly. There were others I slept with or had feelings for around that time—Charles, the six-feet-nine bouncer at a raunchy nightclub I avoided downtown, for instance, would have made a physically impressive and imposing boyfriend. I liked sleeping with Charles because his entire pillar-like body engulfed me; I felt like I was a teddy bear in his arms. I had a raging crush on Sean, my favorite bartender in the city, an Irish Catholic boy with a face like Adonis, who officially kept a chilly professional distance but wore more frequently the shirts I complimented, and called me “sweetie” when the other bartender wasn’t around. There was also John, the young, dreamy, punk green-haired man who worked at the newsstand where I bought the New York Times every Sunday for five dollars just so I could read and laugh at the letters to the editor in the Sunday Book Review. (One time Joyce Carol Oates wrote in to criticize a review of a new biography of Flannery O’Connor. I’d read the review—and the biography—and much of O’Connor’s work, too—and laughed to myself. Yes, Ms. Oates, I thought, you’ve hit the nail on the head again.) John liked to do it once at night, stay over, and then have sex three or four more times in the morning, bright and early, before he had to go to work. I actually got more sleep this way. I liked John. I could see John and I retiring in the country somewhere when we were older, raising little revolutionary children, living off the land, reading Marx and Engels at night by a fire.

Will would never retire to the country. Will was the type to hole up in some swanky condo in a well-wired suburb, writing code until his fingers fell off. Will was a Virgo, and would probably always be single, in some way. I figured even if he eventually married, he’d marry a shadow of a woman, someone he could ignore perpetually, someone who wouldn’t notice she was ignored entirely, or, if she noticed, wouldn’t mind too much, relishing security or financial providence or a quiet life. Maybe she’d be a closet lesbian.

A Leo myself, I needed more attention than that. A secret dread lived in the deepest cockles of my heart, that what I did, which was work on the same epic-style poem for going on six years at that point, was mostly for the brownie points describing my project brought me at the gallery openings, art parties, and tavern concerts I attended on an almost nightly basis. I was a Real Artist with an Impressive Project, and it seemed that the longer I worked on it, the more impressed people were with it. They ascribed a certain sense of romance to the young artist working on her opus for six whole years. I also feared, in a similar region of my heart that I would never, ever reach the end of this poem.

The problem with the various guys I slept with was that we always went to my place. It seemed everyone had a huge commute from the downtown area, where I’d been lucky enough to find a studio on the cheap, or they had roommates. Bringing a girl home when you have roommates—especially a girl you sleep with semi-regularly—whiffs of girlfriend. None of us wanted to tackle that. But my apartment was abysmal: on the large side for a studio, but full of nothing. I had few possessions. I’d moved a lot as a girl and felt claustrophobic when I amassed too much. So, I owned one twin bed and a handful of pots and pans; my clothes lived in baskets under the bed. A kitchen cabinet hosted my laptop computer, on which resided my compulsive collection of Baroque music and, of course, the Great Epic Poem. It was a sparse space, not sexy. And how to fit a 6’9” body builder into a twin bed with a woman who weighs more than Twiggy?

We somehow always made it work.

But the bed: it was small and narrow and too short, inevitably, for anyone’s legs, as soon as we snuggled into one another. It was made for solo sleeping, restless turning in the night, alone, the kind of sleep that brought sweat and insomnia and bitterness. Sleeping with men I met in bars didn’t fit in this bed with the celestial-printed sheets, didn’t fit with all the sprawling limbs, missed entirely the desperate clinging, the nipple suckling, the long looks in deep eyes. Their eyelashes were always longer than mine, and it seemed I could never see through them.

And Will had a tendency to avoid: though he flirted, he never came close, never touched my body. Not until later.

Chloe and I had a tendency to drink a lot. We had regular joints, knew the bartenders, kind of hated them but in a lustful way. Not just Sean, but Daren, Corey, Alphonse, Demetrius, too. It was like a collection of Greek Gods who both gratified and repulsed us at once. I wanted all of them. She hated each of them with a physical passion, shooting empty wine and highball glasses across the bar at them; you could see her need to break things in her eyes.

When I ran into Will on the street, with Chloe, it was unexpected, to say the least. We truly didn’t know his normal route home, didn’t anticipate seeing him on the street. He’d kept shooting us down for social engagements outside that porch, had continually avoided seeing us off that one neighborhood. Now here he was, a backpack on, off work and ready to drink a Scotch or four. As it turned out, so were we.

We found a place with an outdoor patio, but it was close—on the same block—to Sean’s bar, and when Chloe begged out on account of her early mornings, I couldn’t resist dragging Will to Sean’s bar for more drinks, and, mostly, to feel less pathetic in front of my stronger crush. For here was Will, flirting, inhibitions down, touching my shoulder, my knee, looking me in the eye, flushing that bloody-mustache pink, shaking his head in disbelief at things I said, echoing over and over: “Yes, exactly! That’s it exactly!”

My cheeks were flushed with Bunnahabhain Scotch and flattery, and I knew I looked my prettiest that way. I kept catching Sean’s eye over Will’s shoulder, kept blushing and looking away. I’m certain Will thought it was for him. I suppose, then, it was no surprise when he stumbled home after me—after seven Scotches each, really—to “pop in” for a little while before he headed home. Nor was it any surprise when, the moment I closed the door in that empty, empty studio, I felt his hands exploring the curve of my waist, pushing fingers through belt loops in anticipation of other entries. How could I do anything but relax my shoulders against his? How could I do anything but wait for what I knew, then, would happen?

Our limbs kept falling off the bed.

He vomited in my sink four times the next morning; I kept mine down without a tinge of nausea.

I can still recall how every breath felt catching under the sweaty, taut skin of my chest.



I wasn’t sure whom to tell; was it Parve to tell Chloe and expose the fact that we’d slept together to Will’s roommate? Or was that taboo? I lay on my bed the next night, naked, alone, my legs crossed, my fingers pressing into my ribs, anxious, playing them like the keyboard keys on my laptop. I typed: What now?



Sunday morning John gave me that look, his snub nose tilted toward the newsstand, his eyes eyeing the hem of my skirt. I handed him five dollars and didn’t say a word, didn’t respond to his text message.



Charles called twice on Monday. He did not leave voicemails, which made it easier to ignore him.



On Tuesday, Chloe knocked on my studio door. She wore sunglasses, but ripped them off when I answered the door, exposing eyes wide with something: excitement, it turned out.

“It happened, didn’t it,” she demanded. “You slept with Will.”

“Um—” was all I got out before she rushed into the space, spinning and bending and nearly keeling over in excitement.

“How was it! How was he! What’s going to happen next!” None of her questions seemed to bear question marks, and she was waving those sunglasses around in the air, a laser pointer to her enthusiasm. “YOU SLEPT WITH WILL!” she crowed.

“I know,” I said. I blushed a little. I blushed? Yes. Yes, I blushed, pink with something. Pleasure? Shame?



I was distracted when I tried to work on the poem. Who could focus on quatrains, on pentameter, on verb choices, when that question lingered? I found myself staring over the edge of my laptop at the blank walls of my studio. There was a place where the plaster peeled, revealing very old, whitened brick. I focused all of my breathing on that place.




Down at the waterfront, I listened to the tide slapping the boardwalk’s supportive pillars. It was almost summer, but still, I wore a sweater and pulled it tighter around me. When I got Will’s text message, I set my shoulders and started walking. “Meet in five by the pier?”

He was pale, and wouldn’t look me in the eyes. He looked frail enough, all of a sudden, to fall over in a strong burst of wind. The warm tone of the sun on the water only washed him out further, so he was transparent, and I felt an impulse to wrap him in my sweater and sing him lullabies.

“Will, are you all right? You look awful,” I said.

His voice came back small and thin and reedy, higher than normal, unsupported. “I need to make this brief,” he said. “I don’t ever want to talk to you or see you again.” He paused, searching the horizon for something. “We can’t be friends.” He released a shuddering breath, then turned and fled back along the length of the pier.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the handrail he’d been leaning on.



“He says he’s going to move when the lease is up,” Chloe mumbled into her gin and tonic. “We’ve lived together for three years.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I didn’t even convince myself of my apology, but she nodded.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. She was more convincing. At the other end of the bar, Sean kept glancing at us as he pulled four pints of Guinness for a table full of rugby players. “I guess I knew Will had some intimacy issues, but Jesus.” Chloe shook her head. “This is over the top.”

“You can say that again.” I slugged back the rest of my vodka soda, shook my head, and stood up from the bar.

“Well at least you never really like, loved Will,” she proffered. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know rejection stings, but this was just sex, wasn’t it?” I nodded numbly, then sighed.

“I have to pee,” I said.

Sitting on the toilet, jeans around my ankles, I leaned forward and sighed. I couldn’t even get into drinking that night, though Chloe seemed more than capable. The light in the ladies’ room flickered, dim though it was, and I tried to remind myself that what Chloe said was true: Will was just a guy I’d wanted to sleep with. But was anyone ever really just someone I wanted to sleep with, or were they all people I wanted to fill that tiny, tiny bed with me? Were they all people I wanted to fill that tiny, tiny space in my heart that caused more ache than such a negligible sliver warranted?

I flushed the toilet and washed my hands, and thought of Sean out there, pouring drinks for us and never judging our drunkenness, never judging our coping mechanisms; I had seen the skeptical looks he gave some of the clientele, but he spared us his disapproval. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, hands dripping, the paper towel dispenser temporarily out of order. I saw the corners of my mouth drawn down, and I saw the circles that had begun to gather under my eyes. I’m not very old, I thought, but I will be, someday. I wiped my hands on my jeans and left the bathroom.

Sean and Chloe were talking when I got back to the bar.

“I think Chloe might be ready to go home,” he told me. He smiled grimly.

“What? No!” Chloe was good and drunk, and it showed in the way her words were too loud, too close together. She had lost all sense of meter. “I’m just saying I think you two would be so, so so so so so good together. Really.” Sean bit his lip and looked away, occupying himself with wiping down the bar, and it took me a moment to realize that Chloe had been talking about me. To Sean.

“All right, Chloe,” I said. I glanced at Sean. “I’ll come back for the tab tomorrow, okay?”

“Nooo, I got it,” Chloe said. She started patting herself down in unlikely places for her wallet.

“It’s fine,” Sean said. He winked at me and smiled—a gentle smile, this time. “See you girls soon.”



Chloe let me support her as we walked down the street toward my apartment. “I said too much back there, didn’t I?” she asked after a few minutes of fresh air. I didn’t answer. “Hey,” she said, softer. I turned and looked at her, and brushed a loose strand of her black bangs out of her eyes. We both understood the apology inherently.

“We’ve all been there,” I said. She nodded, and reached for my hand.



Chloe stayed with me that night, the two of us side by side, our arms pinned tight, on that twin bed, the cover pulled up to our bare collarbones. Chloe slept the colorless and heavy sleep that too much alcohol always promises to bring, but I lay awake, the bare walls seeming to recede away for an eternity of space, the distant sounds of sirens occasionally punctuating the long night. I thought of the people who’d been in this bed with me: Charles, and how safe his body made me feel; John, and the ghosts of children we’d never have together; Will and his great passion and even greater fear; Chloe, now, and her fiercely loyal friendship; me, whatever I was, whatever I would someday be; and my dreams, all of them, of Sean and a life shared with people who never leave, a life shared with people who saw the value of staying and being part of a beautiful, varied tribe, and that dream of a bed big enough for all of us, and enough of us to fill a bed so big.