New Story!

Title: Why Is This Girl Smiling?

I’m not going to sit here and say that I, Katie Turner Starr Khoury Evinrude, would have done it differently. The world doesn’t work that way. You close your eyes asleep and then your dream erupts, are you telling me that you have control over that dream? If you do, just stop right now. When we say we wish it were a dream we mean we can wake up and find that dream world gone.

I wish Nairobi was a dream, that Matt in Nairobi was a dream. Not Matt was a dream, no, I love Matt. At times, I think he was the only one I really loved, certainly the only one I ever wanted to have children with. Him and I: to build that in a little rolling shrieking bundle of joy, that would have made my life. But ... So I wish Matt in Nairobi was a dream, because, if it was, everything would be different.

Matt wanted to go, he begged at his office to go. Kenya is civilized for Africa. It was going to hurt like hell to let him go. Three months, maybe three more if things went well! We hadn’t even been married that long! My husband, my baby husband, off to do his part to change the world. We were raised to do good, in that old-fashioned Midwestern way, Matt and I, and that was part of the attraction, the trust, the us. That’s what had brought us to Washington to work, and that’s what took Matt to Nairobi.

When it happens, it’s like a car accident. This can’t really be happening AND WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG TO HAPPEN? A phone call. Turn on the TV. Why hasn’t he called? Where was he when the bomb went off? He wasn’t there, I know he wasn’t there, but he could have been there, so I don’t know he wasn’t there but I don’t know that he’s dead, I know he isn’t dead, have I ever been wrong before I have been wrong before but I’ve been right before too, right about Matt, about us, of course he hasn’t called, it’s chaos and since when did the phones ever work there (ha ha) but look at all the smoke and fire and glass except they would say if a westerner was dead – it’s not fair that’s just how it is - unless he was right there when it went off and that’s where he’s supposed to be oh my god help!

I thought that was the worst day of my life. What can your mom say, or Matt’s boss Larry? No one knows anything beyond their thoughts and prayers and little hopes. But when the phone rang I knew it was him. I didn’t stop crying, but you can’t tell tears just by looking at them.

He was two blocks away when it went off. Just dumb luck – like the night back in school when we both needed to read the same reserve book. Was it fate? Of course, the world that is is, and we just swim in it, facing the current, presenting the illusion of the fight, because when you turn your back that’s when you get swept away, lose your bearings, slam into the concrete wall.

None of us were prepared for what happened next. The Nairobi office closed, of course, and the staff flew back home. On the plane, Matt was reading a book and the next minute he felt a little dizzy, his fingers tingled, and then his heart stopped. You want a miracle? The pilot had a defibrillator on board, and he knew how to use it. How do you say thank you to that?

Would you be nervous if you were me? Would you wonder if those simple dreams of living and growing and being together were going to happen? Of course. For a while it seemed we cried every night, we were just so happy to be together. And that first night, I said I want a child right there and then, but Matt said let’s stick to our plan, nothing’s changed. A year is not going to matter. He’s here now, he’s not going to die. The scare is over. All he has to do is take his medication. We have to protect your career, he said, we’re in this together, it’s not just about me.

July 4th. We had a fight, we never fight. But why did he want to go overseas again? Why did he tell me now, on this boat in this stupid filthy river? Yeah, I’m pissed. This is a decision that is ours together. No, I don’t want you to go. Why? Gee, I don’t know, what happened the last time? I love you, I know you love me, but why take the risk. Even the office doesn’t want you to go. I know it will make you a better person, but it won’t make me a better person and I don’t want to be alone for three months and Yes I need some air and I’m going up top.

I felt it, and I had to grab the rail with both hands just to stay up. I felt it, and I’ll always feel it. I’ll never forgive myself, never. The slightest thought of it brings it back roiling in the cauldron tht is the bottom of my heart. Surging. The pain you feel in your heart. There has to be some medical term besides a broken heart. I felt a snap, too, at the instant. And I heard Matt from inside of me , calling for help, calling for hope, calling for me “KATIE SAVE ME.” Inside of me. We were that connected. So why wasn’t I there? Why did I have to stomp off? Why did I trigger this? Why didn’t I die instead?

I ran and ran and ran and pushed and pushed and pushed – to get to my angel – no no no and finally there he was, it couldn’t have been more than seconds and I smothered him, let my love bring him back and then they were unpacking his defibrillator –

The moment I cannot escape. At the slightest it’s back in a flash. More me than me. Forever. But I can’t dwell there and stay on the deck like I did for so long. Moving on is more important, now. Not at first, though. It was all of me. Every little thought. Every suggestion, every moment of the sun, or not sun. We had that conversation 10,000 times, 10,000 times we hugged we kissed, we conceived, we lived forever. Only once-

After that it just didn’t matter. I’m not a crier, but there was no point. Mom came, I love her, but what can she do? She can’t bring back Matt. Oh and everyone else, they tried, I even tried - but

I laugh at those little girls who need constant approval from the outside to have any little smidge of self-worth. Have a spine! So it’s not like, oh Matt is gone now I am nothing. It was Matt is gone, and really, I just don’t want to be here. I am, but why? It has to get better, or it has to end. I can’t go on like this.



I know I stopped swimming and the current swept me away. I left DC, I was never one for haunted houses. New York is the place to go to get lost. New York has no illusions. You are alone, and New York let’s you know that you are alone. You walk the streets, there’s no one, no one you know. What, you walk around expecting to know somebody? No looks of sorrowed pity, no there but the grace of god. No one calls you, and surprisingly, there are a dearth of public spaces. New York has no joy because there is no joy.

When the settlement money was gone – and what a joke that was – I took a job. Not a bad job, in my field, a public/private service job to help the less fortunate. But 65k in New York isn’t much. I took another job, a writing gig, on the side. An internet how to invest account, might as well get some use out of my MBA. Stay busy. time is bad is time to dwell and that’s time for Matt except he is not here. So move on. Move on to being alone, move on to my all black exterior and interior. Move on to this best of all possible worlds, thank you God. Indeed, how can I ever thank you?

New York is there for you when you need a slap in the face. Because it doesn’t know how to pull punches. Sure there are people at work, but the men are all gay, the women, somehow different. Cheery even. You navigate through them with a few polite demurrals from your social obligations and everyone gets the hint.

The multitudes of New York? The ones you see at the deli and Spin City, at the DMV and the MTA? These people do not talk to you, why would they? Hello Yemen. Other than when you spend money no one cares. Does it hurt? Yeah, it hurts, but given the circumstances, just what are you expecting? You hope to die, comforted that there are many forms of suicide.

Sometimes you splurge. That once a month gush of hope (irrational). You get dressed up, you put on make-up. You go to dance class or go eat sushi alone. Mostly you just go home and sigh at the end, (rational). Still, you were surprised. He was just there talking suddenly, so easy so natural, like maybe we had met before, and it makes you smile, beam even. He says let’s go see a movie. You jump a bit when you heard you said yes. Your body does have a mind of it’s own.

Khoury is over the next night. I give him the grand tour of my now cleaned squalor. Boys are curious, and even older boy are still boys, still curious, and Khoury saw all the pictures and the plaques and the memorabilia. He even snooped around a bit on his own. So I gave him the big test “Did you notice?”. He failed. That should have been it, the end, but somehow it endeared me to him even more. We never were apart again after that night.

Don’t jump on me here. Life wasn’t all that pleasant. Maybe Khoury wasn’t the most sensitive the most adept observer, the brightest bulb in the box. His me and my me were very different, but I caught on right away his me was the better me. In his me, I wasn’t a widow, I wasn’t crying myself to sleep every night, I hadn’t vowed never to open my legs again, or laugh again, or live again. He didn’t send flowers and he didn’t apologize for being insensitive, he never washed his hands and every now and then he introduced me to the kids in the hood as the widow. What do you see in me, I pestered. Your smile, always your smile.

Khoury wanted sex. Matt, I realized for the first time, didn’t want it that much, that often, or that anything. Once a week was normal, or was it that I didn’t want it either? I did with Khoury. It made me feel good, it made me forget, and being wanted was being wanted and trust me I was not wanted before, not by me even. Okay, enough on that.

Like I said, we were together every night. When we first met, I said, under my breath (why did I say this?) that “this is my New York fantasy.” Of course, Khoury heard that, although I promptly denied saying it. But isn’t that the way it should be? You meet someone, you like them, and then you are together? It was that way with Matt. Why wouldn’t it be that way again? It’s not like the other person has to be perfect – God knows Khoury has his list of shit, arrogance, cold, bitter, demanding, isolated, and I suppose I had my list too (no blowjobs!) –just about as perfect as you. And happy, happy goes a long ways. We were happy.

Because life with Khoury was so much better than life before Khoury. Call it the honeymoon period but that’s all we knew. It seemed like Matt and I had been brother and sister. Khoury said of the all the people he met, and he met everyone, I was the only one he ever considered marrying. Mostly, he just made me happy in a million little ways. I knew he was going to ask, and couldn’t wait to say yes.

We decided to go upstate for Memorial Day. A mini-holiday. Khoury had a boat, an inflatable boat, so we were going to put in as he called it. He knew a great little motel, not too expensive, right on the river, the Cottonwoods, and the guy who ran it, Jeff. Used to be one of those forlorn motels on the abandoned federal highway, but nothing’s abandoned in the Hudson Valley anymore and so they built a ingenious hallway to cover the exterior doors and redid the rooms in retro. Ours had a Jacuzzi. 99 dollars a night. Yes Khoury earned more than me, and together we earned enough to be comfortable, to splurge, but that just wasn’t who we were. We’d rather save. There were going to be changes. We had to prepare. Khoury was a planner.

Knowing what I know, why would I be eager to say yes? I almost died when Khoury mentioned he had a bad heart! And a father that hadn’t busted out of his 40’s! It came ball, all of it, but I swallowed it. Oh, he said, I am too old, too slow, for someone as sexy as you. Maybe he just said this to get a rise out of me. Or maybe he really thought he could go at any moment. Well, I said, life is a risk. I’ve bet once and lost once. But I’ll bet again if you will. Love, plain and simple.

He asked in the hot tub! Of course I cried, but like I said, you can’t tell tears. The ring was wonderful, understated. It fit (how did he figure that out?). Should we start right now I said? Yes, but first we have to go into the river. It’s great once you’re all heated up. Trust me I was already heated, my nipples had never been that hard before, but off we went over the cold night ground to the river, naked! Khoury slapping around half up already. We laughed as we jumped in. It wasn’t deep, but it hit like a tub of cold concrete. I jumped up, and out but Khoury didn’t. He was in head first. NO! This can’t be. How can this be? No. He was so heavy. I fell in and that was going to be that. No traction. No breath. Chaos. You can tell I’m holding back here. I am, yes.

In the end, I tried, Jeff tried, the paramedics tried. We went to the hospital to try. They jumped him up out of the surgery bed with the voltage. Nothing. Who was more numb, my Khoury or me?

The tide was going down, and so I went until the floor was there. Because when there is nothing left, where there is no where to go down, to go out, to be for, there is the floor. There is always a floor. The lowest possible point. I was there. I couldn’t get up. What I realized was is, the floor was the place for me. Hard and fast, flat. Here I dissolved. My heart, that caustic mix of self-immolation spilled through all of me and then washed me out until I was as thin as a jug of water on an infinitely flat surface.

There’s no use going on. In life, or in my tale. Somethings you can’t describe. You look at someone, you know there is a hole in their heart. I wonder, back in World War Two, that people didn’t look at you and say, you will die soon, I can see it. For me, the floor was enough. No one came, I never went out, I tossed the mirror.

My mother? I hadn’t told her about Khoury, and I had already learned to lie on the phone. His funeral. It was so pathetic I could have cried just about it. Me, a couple of bud he worked with. That was in. He was alone. I knew then that I was always alone, had always been alone, and for whatever moments I dreamt I had not been alone, those were the cruelest illustions.

What hurt, because the pain simply was, a huge dial turned to zero, Zero, zero pointing at me, sorry I couldn’t resist one more dig, what hurt was that it wasn’t going to get better. Ever. I gave myself a nickname, The Destroyer. If I just talk to you, that could be it. My Back of the Village Voice Ad: Painless Death! Decide to Marry Me and I’ll take care of the rest! Liquid Sky 2.

Sleep was not good. So I didn’t sleep. TV. McDonalds. Carbs. There are many forms of suicide. Not that any of this answered the big question: What sin had I committed to deserve this? Clearly in another life I was …. Stalin! Because in this life, alright, I was a piece of shit, but not bad …

What was left but my delusional escape? My period, I’ll miss my period, we had been fooling around, why not? Then Khoury and I will live forever. Of course I’ll name him Matt. Khoury will understand, and if he doesn’t why doesn’t he come here and we casn talk about it?

I was with my high school friend Charlie Schmidt on a church trip to eastern Colorado. Keanseburg. We skipped out to eat by ourselves. The town idiot came and sat down with us. Too stupid to shoo him away we listened. He was fat 40, and knew he was stupid, useless. He said, I used to read the Playboy and get all excited. But I stopped. No one is ever going to want me. I am going to be alone. All I ever wanted was to go to Disneyland. Then my uncle died. I had to go to Anaheim. The last day I went to Disneyland. To stand in the parking lot, by the gates. Hoping. A ticket was 40 dollars! When have I ever had 40 dollars? Ever. So I just stood there. Then up came Jackie from Keanseburg. He said You need a ticket don’t you? He bought me a ticket! From Keanseberg, what are the odds? Zero. There are angels in this life, I know it for myself.

My period was late! I’m never late! I danced! I was me, finally, the me I wanted to be, not the other mes! Finally!.

That lasted for a day. July 4th. There are angels. Some are just different. I became a woman of action. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. But at this instant, I knew I needed to leave my apartment. With the inflatable boat.

A greater consciousness is at work, your body the mere tool. For once I was free.

The tide was going to the east river, but now I was back to swimming. I sling the sack on my back and went to the Hudson, across the Hudson, on a water taxi. To under the ticking Colgate clock. Next to the toxic waste dump, right at the marina at the edge of endless sea. My symbolic world making some sense finally. Is it going to hurt? Yes, but those are the circumstances.

At the end of the pier I pulled out the boat and the pump. I’d done it once before, it wasn’t too hard. 10 minutes of sweat. Did I pause once or twice? Did I have to beat down once more the caustic spill of my brokenness? So. I can do it. I’m not useless, I can do this. I am good enough.

I drunk in all the boats, the softening gloam. I edged the boat over the wall into the water. There was a shot right behind my head, and every frayed connection in me fizzled. I lost the tow rope, but stepped on it. Whoopsie came from behind me, with a cheer and an expectancy I rarely have felt. Gave you quite the fright didn’t I? He was the most beautiful old man, with an overactive champagne bottle. You were about to give me the fright of my life, dearie, tossing that swimming pool toy into our ocean here. Had to run here to save you.

Am I just that fucking sap that involuntarily smiles? Am I all autonomic nervous system? With all the development of an 18 month old? Can’t I complete even the most simplest of tasks?

Of course by now his entire crew was over. It was decided. I was going on their boat. “You would have died on that thing!” they joked. I know! Their boat just happened to be 138 feet. Come on, the fireworks are starting!

So the old geezer has my arm. Introducing himself, I really wasn’t even paying attention. Tonight is tonight, and tomorrow is tomorrow and there is the floor, waiting for me. The boat, that will have to be sacrificed for now. There are many ways to do it, my friend.

You’re Katie Turner, he gushed! I know you, I read your column! And so he did. What were the odds people? That it was my turn to have an angel? That it was my turn to be saved? I’m Bob, he said, and that’s the Evinrude. That Evinrude. Was his second wifes, she got it from her husband before, her third, and now it was his except he was all alone, except for the crew, you know. Cheers.

I let my last ray of hope fade. If I jumped from the boat they would have fished me out anyway. And Bob, he was like a father to me, especially since we never could do it, this being in the days before Viagra and all. It took him halfway into the fireworks to propose.

Stop it. I am not insane. I told Bob what was going to happen to him. He laughed. Every day he wakes up is a surprise to him, so he didn’t care. But I have to live with myself I said. In mere seconds I would have been afloat ready to find the swirls under the Narrows. There was going to be no tomorrow. And what, I am just supposed to add this on top? That you are the next? That your silver hair, your compassion, your carefree smiles, that this too, I shall undo? He laughed. That’s a hell of a story from a young girl like you. What you need is an agent. I liked his me …

We got married at sea, and he was buried at sea, eleven days later. Didn’t even both to go back into port. Why? No one was there, and I knew what was in his will, hell I wrote it. The crew runs the boat just like nothings changed, Florida in the summer, Newfoundland in the winter. I figure we have enough for 50 cycles. They’re my boys now.

Yes, that’s my picture on the bow. How do I look? You see, on the one hand, nothing’s changed. I’m not getting married again, I’m not even going to so much as hold the hand of a man. Because I am the widow-maker. The floor is still under my feet, touching me at every moment while the tide swirls and the only question in life is to swim or not swim. And every night is black.

Then again, there’s that little picture of me at the front of this, smiling. Now why would I be smiling?

(Note: frontpiece to this article is a very nice piece of art, in broad sunny stokes, of a very very happy woman on the bow of her 138 foot boat.)