16. Exactly Through the Motions

“The function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him.” —Roland Barthes

After that first day in North Middleton, things fell into a comfortable routine. Every morning, Becky, Paula and Jen would drive into town and have breakfast and drinks at the co-op. Jen continued drinking black tea instead of herbal. She decided that it would be safe to indulge in this one, small vice for the time being; without the caffeine to maintain her edge of alertness, she was afraid that her brain would become as slow and sleepy as her life in this town.

Jen’s cashier was at his same register each day. Becky always stood in line to pay for the drinks and food, but he always made a special point to turn and smile at Jen as she sat with Paula at their table by the window.

“That guy’s pretty star-struck,” said Paula, on their third day at the co-op, as he turned back towards his computer monitor after flashing his shy smile at them. “He should give it a rest.”

“You really think he recognizes me?” asked Jen. Her hair was short and black now; Becky had brilliantly replicated the spiky look on the box of hair dye. No one had given Jen a second glance since she arrived in North Middleton. She was starting to really believe that she might live unnoticed here, just like a normal person.

Paula nodded. “He must,” she said, “the way he keeps looking over here.”

Although she didn’t usually argue with people, especially over silly, unprovable things, Jen couldn’t stop herself from retorting. “Maybe he’s just friendly,” said Jen.

“Or he’s the only person in this town whose head isn’t so far up his ass that he can’t see what’s in front of him,” said Paula.

She let Jen mull the image over for a moment, sipping her drink, then added, “He must not be from here.”

While Paula and Becky chatted over their pastries, Jen surreptitiously watched the cashier scanning boxes and punching numbers into his computer. He always wore tidy, dark-colored jeans and flat-bottomed sneakers under the black half-apron all the cashiers wore around their waists. And his t-shirts were nice, soft-looking and well-fitted, showing off his muscular shoulders.

Jen studied the designs on the shirts, trying to learn something about him. One day there was a picture of Bruce Lee on the front. Another day, the shirt had some kind of Asian writing on it. Jen thought Becky or Paula might be able to identify the language, but she didn’t want to ask them about it and draw attention to her fascination with the cashier.

A few days into the week, he finally wore a shirt with English writing on it. Jen thought it was more of the mysterious Asian lettering, but as she stared longer she realized that the English words were simply in an Oriental-looking font. Even so, she had to squint to read them across the distance and through the funny embellishments. “Master Park’s Academy of Tae Kwon Do,” they spelled out. Oh, thought Jen, it’s like Paula was saying. They’re into karate. That explained the other t-shirts, the Asian writing and kung fu heroes. She felt a thrill of success run through her; she had figured something out about him, just from his clothes!

This guy, Jen realized, would be the perfect person to ask about a yoga school. He would be sure to know. As soon as Becky and Paula leave, she thought, I’ll ask him if there’s one in town. Jen was collecting little plans like these, to enact once her friends had left: find out about a yoga class, walk into town from the house in Cone, visit the Snail Plant. They weren’t much—she couldn’t fill a full day with them all together—but they gave her a sense of what her routine might be in the strange, empty days ahead. And now she could add one more: have a conversation about yoga with the cashier.

After breakfast each day, Becky, Paula and Jen wandered around the Mid-Northern-Central Michigan University campus. It was tiny compared to the sprawling university where Jen had done her two-and-a-half years of college. You could walk from one end of campus to the other in ten minutes, and the low, rectangular buildings looked like trailers.

For the first two days after Jen died her hair, the three of them walked through the campus unnoticed, popping into buildings to look at the different departments and use the bathrooms. They visited a student art gallery filled with glazed ceramic vases and bowls. And on one day, they even sat unnoticed in the back of a lecture hall, observing a class about Buddhism, after Paula saw that the students milling around in the hall before class were carrying a book called Psychology and Eastern Philosophy. Jen was worried that the professor would notice them and demand that they leave, especially since they were conspicuously over ten years older than most of the students in the room, and the only ones who weren’t scribbling furiously in notebooks as he stood on stage behind a music stand acting as a podium, reading his lecture in a distant, droning voice off of tattered sheets of yellow notepad paper.

“Ugh,” said Paula, the moment they were out of the classroom. “I’m glad I’m not in college anymore. That was awful.” She covered her mouth abruptly as the professor walked right past them, but he didn’t show any sign that he had heard her.

Their daily schedule ended up with Becky and Paula cooking dinner back at the house, and then two hours later, yoga in the upstairs loft. It was a quaint little routine, and Jen began to get excited about how sweet and plain and unobserved her time in Michigan would be.

But on the third day of Jen’s black hair, things changed in North Middleton. Jen first noticed it when they arrived at the food co-op. As she walked across the colorful sculpture garden with Becky and Paula, a woman crossing their path stopped abruptly and stared. Jen felt a jolt of irritation and self-consciousness. But she reminded herself not to be self-centered; the woman might have had some other reasons for stopping. Maybe she just remembered that she forgot to buy something she needed, Jen thought.

Inside the co-op, they walked past the cash registers and over to the café to pick out their drinks and pastries, just like they had for the past three days. But this time, as they passed by, the people in the line stopped mid-motion, froze in place, and turned their heads to stare as though Jen were a car accident. She turned and caught a woman openly pointing at her, talking to a friend; the embarrassed woman lowered her finger and looked away as Jen met her gaze.

“I think they finally recognize you,” said Becky, her tentative tone suggesting that she found the sudden change in their environment as jarring as Jen did.

“You must have been on the news or something,” said Paula. “They were never going to figure it out on their own.”

They walked over to the espresso counter and ordered Jen’s tea, Becky’s black coffee, and Paula’s cappuccino. Jen was starting to feel queasy, and the pastries in the case, which usually never looked particularly appetizing to Jen, suddenly appeared downright grotesque. She could see the oil glinting on the surface of her usual bran muffin, the hard crust forming on the top of the cheese Danish that Paula would most certainly order. Jen didn’t want to get anything, but she had promised Becky, and herself, that she would eat; she didn’t want Becky to worry that she would starve herself as soon as her friends left town. She decided on a plain bagel. As anticipated, Paula got the pastry with the crusty cheese. Becky ordered the bran muffin, then went off to pay, while Jen and Paula carried the drinks and food to the seating area.

On the way over to their usual table, Paula grabbed an abandoned newspaper off of an empty table. When they were seated, she plunked it down in front of Jen and began rummaging through the disorganized sections, scanning the front pages.

“Aha!” she announced triumphantly, yanking one crumpled section out of the pile and holding it in the air like a trophy. She unfurled it so that Jen could see the front page of what turned out to be the entertainment section. Most of the page was taken up by a picture of a cartoon robot, evidently the lead character in a movie that had opened the previous weekend; Jen had been too distracted to keep up with any of that. But on one of the side columns, Jen saw a photograph of herself, her heart-shaped face framed with jagged black locks; it had evidently been taken in the last two days. “Actress Seen Vacationing in North Middleton,” the headline read.

“Where am I?” asked Jen, grabbing the paper from Paula’s hand and bringing it closer to her face. She hadn’t seen any photographers anywhere. Studying the picture, she realized that it must have been taken right where she was sitting, in the co-op. She could see the edge of the window frame, with its vibrant blue paint, just above her head, and the side of Paula’s face, which had been cropped out of the picture, leaving just a blurry bit of her cheek and shoulder.

“It was taken right here,” she said to Paula, pointing at the evidence in the picture. “I didn’t see anyone taking pictures.”

“Me neither,” said Paula. “But it was pretty crowded in here yesterday. They probably used a distance lens. And we were here at the same time every day, so it would be easy to find you.”

Paula thought for a moment, twisting her dreadlock around her finger. Jen put down the newspaper and sipped her tea, trying not to be agitated. She had expected people to recognize her in North Middleton. But now that she had gotten used to the luxury of anonymity, to have it taken away from her felt like an assault.

“Someone in here must have recognized you,” said Paula, allowing her hair to drop from her finger. “Someone who knew that you were coming in here every day.”

Paula turned her head and rotated her eyes towards the cashier. Becky had finally made her way to the front of the line, and she appeared to be chatting pleasantly with him. Jen could see his impressive shoulder muscles moving under his shirt, which featured more Asian writing on the back, this time above a yin-yang symbol.

“No,” said Jen, taken aback at Paula’s implied accusation of her new best-friend-to-be. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know; don’t they give you money for that kind of tip-off?” She was still absently playing with her hair, sending the now-familiar sandalwood smell in Jen’s direction.

“I don’t think so,” said Jen, although truthfully she had no idea of the pay scale for celebrity espionage. “It doesn’t seem newsworthy enough to pay for.”

“I’m sure it’s the most exciting thing to happen in North Middleton for the last year,” said Paula. Turning her head to scan the occupants of the co-op, she added, “Maybe ten years.”

“How could that be?” said Jen, pointing at the newspaper lying on the table between them. “There’s a whole newspaper full of news. I’m not even on the front page. I only made the entertainment section.”

“This,” said Paula, lifting the paper up with both hands and pulling the top of the page taught for emphasis, “is the Cadillac newspaper,” she said. “You made the entertainment section from seventy miles away.”

Paula pulled the article in front of her and scanned through it half-aloud, muttering incomprehensible phrases here and there, until she read, “North Middleton, best known for housing Mid-Northern-Central Michigan University, is a normally sleepy town.” She slapped the paper back down on the table. “See,” she said triumphantly, her point made, “People in Cadillac don’t even know where North Middleton is.”

Becky arrived at the table and pulled up the third empty chair, just in time to hear Paula’s statement. She looked down at the newspaper inquisitively.

“I didn’t know Cadillac was a town,” said Becky.

“Exactly,” said Paula.

That afternoon, to avoid any further gawking, they decided to skip their campus walk and do yoga by the lake instead. They didn’t use mats; instead they practiced right on the back lawn, which had been warmed by the afternoon sun.

Becky led them silently through the familiar sequence of postures. Even though it was difficult to balance on the uneven ground, Jen liked hearing the sounds of birds and feeling the grass under her bare feet. This was a real spring, Jen thought, admiring the buds and blossoms on the trees overhead as she twisted her face up towards the sky. Everything was fecund and blooming and green. Even the swampy smell of the lake reminded her of burgeoning new life.

After they had risen from their final pose, the corpse, lying dead and flat on the ground, they continued to sit cross-legged in the grass, enjoying the perfect weather and the tranquil scenery of the lake.

“It’s really beautiful back here,” said Becky, raising her bony knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. “We haven’t spent any time by the lake at all.”

“It’s a good thing Jen was in that newspaper,” said Paula.

Becky laughed, but Jen groaned; after the tranquility of the yoga, she had almost forgotten.

“You know,” said Paula, “this would be a great day to go swimming.”

“Oh, good idea!” said Becky, lowering one hand to the ground and then jumping to her feet. “Let’s go get the bathing suits.

“I’ll wait here,” said Jen, not wanting Becky to go searching through the luggage for her bathing suit. Jen hated swimming, precisely because of having to wear a bathing suit. She wasn’t sure which one Becky had packed, and she looked fine in all of them, she supposed. But in LA or San Diego or Mexico or Hawaii, wearing a bathing suit was an invitation to unflattering photos of some invisible-ink cellulite that only appeared under the magic camera lenses of the paparazzi, photos that would appear three days later on the covers of the trashiest tabloids but only on the inside pages of the classier ones.

Jen recognized that the odds of any photographers appearing in this secluded back yard were pretty low. Still, after her unexpected appearance in the newspaper, she felt awfully exposed. She couldn’t bear the thought of putting on a bikini right now.

“Oh, come on,” said Becky, who knew about Jen’s aversion to bathing suits. Becky had no such aversion; she was one of those people who enjoyed going to spas where people walked around naked, and she was as comfortable in her underwear as in a winter parka. “No one will see you back here.”

“I just don’t like swimming,” said Jen plaintively, wishing Becky would drop it. It was embarrassing enough that she didn’t like wearing a bathing suit; she didn’t need Becky to talk about it.

Paula must have deduced the reason for Jen’s hesitation. “This isn’t the beach,” she said, rising from the grass and brushing dirt off of her behind. “This is a lake. You can wear whatever you want.”

Jen wasn’t sure what Paula’s comment was supposed to mean. No, you can’t wear whatever you want, Jen thought, imagining diving into the lake in the stretchy sweatpants she was wearing for yoga. They would get so waterlogged, she would probably sink, she thought.

“What are you going to wear?” she asked Paula. Although Becky and Paula were both standing, ready to go change, Jen was still sitting obstinately on the ground.
“Shorts,” said Paula simply, as though this were the only reasonable thing to wear for swimming.

“You have some shorts in the suitcase,” said Becky. “And there’s an old t-shirt. Why don’t you swim in that? You can put it on over your bathing suit.”

“Fine,” said Jen resignedly, standing to join them. Her tone was grudging, but she actually felt enthused about the novel idea of swimming in shorts. Now that she thought about it, she realized that she actually liked swimming—it was peaceful to be surrounded by water, and it gave her time to think. It was really only the bathing suit that she disliked. Still, she had just said that she didn’t like swimming, and she wasn’t ready to admit her lie.

“You guys are always forcing me to do stuff,” she said petulantly, as she followed them up to the house.

Twenty minutes later, Jen was floating peacefully on her back in the middle of the lake. She had waded in behind Paula and Becky through the forest of reeds and algae by the shore. This far out, though, the water was murky but unobstructed by plant life. Paula and Becky were having a contest to see who could swim out the farthest. Jen followed them out until her feet could no longer touch the bottom; then she stopped and floated.

She stared at the sky above her. It was a deep, healthy blue, filled with puffy clouds. She could feel the t-shirt swishing around her body as she leaned slightly to one side and then the other to stay afloat. It made her feel like a beautiful sea plant, swaying with the flow of the water. She couldn’t remember ever having felt more content.

She heard splashing off to her side. She turned and saw Paula swimming towards her, her soggy hair flapping up behind her with each stroke. Jen turned her body upright and began to tread water.

“Pretty, huh,” said Paula, panting a little as she stopped next to Jen. The two of them were facing the same direction, looking at the thick wall of trees off to one side of the lake. In this direction, the lake seemed to extend into the trees, past what could be seen of it. The water was reflecting the light of the sky, like a smooth, sparkling mirror between the shady green of the forest.

“Mm-hmm,” said Jen.

“It’s really brave of you to stay out here,” said Paula.

“I’m not scared of swimming,” Jen said, struggling a little to get out a full sentence without sinking.

Paula began to either laugh or speak; either way, it caused her to swallow a gulp of lake water and begin to choke. After she was done coughing, she said, “No, I mean in Michigan. It’s brave of you to stay out here.”

Jen wasn’t sure what to say. Was it brave? If so, that meant that there was something here to be frightened of. She knew what that something was: boredom and loneliness. She didn’t want to think about it.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I just want you to know,” Paula continued, stopping every few words to take in a deep breath through her nose, “that I’ll take care of Becky.”

“What’s wrong with Becky?” said Jen, turning to face Paula. She suddenly remembered Chase’s strange behavior, how quiet and irritable he had been just before Jen left, how she had worried that Becky was sick. And Becky had been acting strangely, with all the vitamins and odd foods. Jen felt the blood in her feet go cold with worry. If Becky was having a problem, any kind of problem, Jen couldn’t stay here; she would need to go back to Los Angeles with Becky.

“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong,” said Paula, hastily. “I just meant, you know, so she wouldn’t be lonely without you.”

“Oh,” said Jen, not sure if she really believed Paula. “Thanks,” she added, uncertainly. She’d have to make sure that everything was okay with Becky before she left; otherwise Jen was going straight back home.

Jen stayed by herself, floating and thinking, long after Paula had swum back to shore. It was probably nothing, like Paula had said. Becky would tell her if something was wrong. Wouldn’t she? Things had been strained between them for the last few months, but that didn’t change their long history together or their unspoken vow that they would be each others’ family forever, no matter what happened, till death did them part.

As she thought about Becky, she stared into the distance, floating on her back, her head and feet tracing a skewed circle as the current turned her gently. Mostly she saw trees in the distance, but from one angle she saw houses, familiar houses, the houses across from the one she would be staying in. She recognized the balcony of the old, green house directly across the lake from hers. And there, on the balcony, was the same distant figure, sitting and staring straight back at her.

For the rest of the week, they decided to stay home and enjoy the lake. Becky went to the co-op by herself and bought enough food to stock the kitchen, she said for the week, but Jen thought it was enough to last her a month. Every morning Becky and Paula would cook breakfast while Jen sat in the nearby living room and read. The food was always healthy and tasty and abundant, and Jen wondered how she would manage once they were gone.
Becky must have wondered, too, because she took to quizzing Jen during each meal about her dietary plans for the future.

“So what will you eat for breakfast?” asked Becky, scooping up scrambled eggs with a warm tortilla.

“Oatmeal,” said Jen, dutifully. “With soy milk. Cereal. Eggs.” She took a large bite of her own eggs to confirm her healthy appetite.

“What about for lunch?” Becky asked.

Jen found the exercise embarrassing, but she knew she had earned it through her failure to eat properly in the past. That, coupled with her inability to cook, might give even the most reasonable and non-controlling best friend a reason to question her. She would have to learn how to cook, she resolved, healthy things with fresh vegetables in them. That would give her a reason to go to the co-op more often. They even sold cookbooks there.

But for the first time in many years, it was not only Becky who was watching out for Jen’s well-being. During these final few days together, Jen observed Becky carefully, looking for signs that something was wrong. Becky seemed pretty healthy and content; she was eating normally, even more than usual, and had even gained a little weight around her waist. She kept herself busy cleaning up around the house and unpacking Jen’s clothes, which Jen would have just kept in the suitcase otherwise, arranging them neatly in the upstairs dresser and closet. Each afternoon they did yoga and went swimming, and Becky’s vigorous energy didn’t seem to wane through any of it.

Jen wanted to find a time to talk to Becky, to make sure that everything was all right, but there never seemed to be a good opportunity. Paula was always around, and Jen didn’t want to reveal that Paula had alarmed her with her comment while they were swimming. Even when Jen did get a moment alone with Becky, Becky was so busy grilling her about her plans, her food, and her daily routine that Jen couldn’t figure out how to interrupt her.

On Saturday morning, a week after they arrived, they woke early so that Becky and Paula could drive the rental car back to the Detroit airport. While Paula packed her duffel bag in the other room, Becky busied herself organizing Jen’s things for a final time.

“Your socks are in this drawer now,” Becky was saying, pointing at the bottom of the dresser. Her skin looked green and pale, and her forehead was beaded with sweat. She turned toward the closet, but Jen could see her bring her hand to her mouth as though she were about to vomit.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jen. “You haven’t been feeling well.”

“We’ll talk once you get settled in,” said Becky, turning back to face Jen and smiling weakly. She gave Jen a comforting and resigned pat on the arm that Jen recognized from movies. Oh my god, she thought; Becky’s sick. She had thought it before, when Becky first started acting funny, but now she felt sure. What else would Becky need to talk to her about? Becky was sick, and now she was waiting to tell Jen because she didn’t want to ruin her trip. And it was probably Jen’s fault that she was sick in the first place—she had caused Becky all that stress, and they had been so disconnected, and now Jen was abandoning her right when Becky needed help and couldn’t ask for it.

“Tell me now,” said Jen, grabbing Becky’s hand. It felt warm and sweaty.

“There’s nothing to tell,” said Becky. “Not yet,” she added. “I promise I’ll tell you if anything comes up.”

Jen tried to feel relieved, but she couldn’t. Becky’s vagueness was too disconcerting. There was no way she was going to let Becky leave with this secret hanging unsettled between them.

“You don’t have cancer, right?” said Jen.

Becky laughed at the panic in Jen’s voice. Jen felt a little relieved, but not entirely convinced.

“No,” said Becky. “No cancer.” She looked straight at Jen, and for the first time in months, Jen saw none of the stress, the distance, that had colored their recent interactions. “Really, you don’t need to worry. There’s nothing wrong.”

With her face so close to Jen’s, Becky looked for a moment just like the little girl that Jen had befriended so many years ago. Jen wanted to cry thinking of how that girl had grown up with her, through so many stages and changes in life, so that now they were both grown women. She couldn’t remember why they had been so distant now; she loved Becky, she remembered.

She put her arms around Becky and gave her a long, warm hug. Becky’s body felt stiff and protective; then it buckled and softened against her, so that Jen felt she was holding Becky up from falling. Jen’s eyes filled with tears, which slid down her cheek towards Becky’s shoulder. She wondered how she was going to survive here by herself, and whether Becky was going to be all right.

They stood like that for a long time, until Paula came into the room and told them it was time to go. Then Paula and Becky gathered up their bags, threw everything into the rental car, hugged Jen goodbye, and drove away down the long dirt path. Jen stood in the driveway, shivering in her t-shirt, and watched the blue sedan until it rounded the corner and disappeared behind the dense wall of forest.

Chapter 17
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/12/17-what-scares-us.html