Swati Sudarsan - A Story
We Speak in the Same Dimension
When the cities turned into a run-on sentence, I knew I could no longer hopscotch across the globe and call that a life. I followed whatever beacon I could find, and it came to my window at a red light in Accra. I rolled the taxi window down, and handed the man probably too much cash in exchange for you. I held you in my arms, and asked my driver to stop at a road stand for milk. As I dripped it from my index finger onto your little tongue, I knew that you were the first intonation of what I sought.
A week ago I landed on Philadelphia in my mind, and now we are here. I struggle with the notion that perhaps I had cowed to my homing instincts, but you remind me with your spry little licks that I chose this. Permanency. I named you while we were over the Atlantic. Bentley. You are aggressive at whim - sweet and then suddenly possessed. Even when your eyes are vacant, I am on guard. You are quick to snap on. It’s easy to forgive you though, since you are so cute. Fully white except for your staunchly black ears and nose. The way your face pieces together reflects the stitches you have woven into the little tears on my heart. Before you, Bentley, I was holding onto too many goodbyes. My art had always sold, whether in Naples, Bilbao, or Rabat, but the collateral of each new adventure was damming my arteries. I tried staying for longer bouts in cities, but it was an ersatz anticoagulant. It was time to stop running.
Making a home has unbridled the worries that my nomad life stifled. It was simple when I could leave behind the things I didn’t like and the people who hurt me, but now my worries are a hydra. Every time I tackle one, it seems to come back with three new heads. I have to worry about what to do with you, feed you on long days of unpacking (even when I myself forget to eat), and buy things like pots that will last longer than the time it takes for me to get bored of a city. The first night in our apartment, sleep pulls a plastic bag over our heads, suffocating us into the depths of slumber. The heat in Philly is oppressive, but we lie with our damp heads pressed against each other. Our dreams bounce between our skulls, each of us adding new details to share with the other. We are practicing what it means to write our lives together.
The next morning, I wake up with thirst grasping my throat and the sound of you being murdered. I shove my glasses onto my face, and see you foaming at the mouth, snarling and then scaring yourself with your own noises. You are robbing me of my innocence of you, but I think I know what this is. Someone is at the door.
As I push myself up in bed, there is a crisp pinch on my body somewhere south of my neck. It takes me a while to circumlocute my way to the pain. My right ring finger is pink and swollen, as it often gets when I travel, but now it is constricted by a ring. I almost forgot that last night, I had taken this ring from my toiletries bag, where it had stayed for over two years of travel. I put it on to see if my time away made it feel different to wear. The ring used to symbolize an abyss, and now although the silver loop encloses the same hole, I imagine it as a chasm I can step over. My engorged finger makes it clear that it was callous to shove this relic of the past onto myself like it had always been there. I soap my throbbing finger when the doorbell rings again. You are snarling, absolutely feral, and I finally manage to yank off the ring, nearly dislocating my finger with it. I run to you, grabbing you into my arms to calm you, but you are still kicking when I open the door.
“HIIIII, I’m Misty and this is Tina! We live next door and heard you have SUCH a cute dog!” There are two shiny girls with bleached blonde hair before me. Misty pushes her weight against the door to open it further, conspicuously sizing up my apartment. You whine lightly so I set you down. I pray that you won’t bite anyone’s glitter toenails off.
“Yeah, this is Bentley. You can say hi, but he gets spooked easily,” I warn. “I’m Ria by the way.”
I am not sure if they catch my name since they are focused on rubbing your belly. You howl in delight and offer your softest parts to these strangers. I would not mind if you took a nip at one of their hands, since these blonde girls have never had a reason not to trust something absolutely. They don’t know that before you meet someone, you turn like a screw and are all angles at once. In this liminal space you are both a fifteen pound werewolf and you are the sweetest drip of honey to have escaped the beehive. Your persona is iterative, informed by the essence of the person you are with. Yet once you settle, you will be that version of yourself one hundred times over for them.
Misty asks to use my bathroom, and I acquiesce, though I am unsure why she can’t use hers just a few feet away. She pushes my door open, forcing me to step back, to get through. Your eyes stay closed as she walks away, lost in your belly-rub reverie. Tina turns to me.
“I am so glad you are here,” she grins, hands still on your stomach. “We are having a Mimosa Party later today, if you want to stop by. Lots of essential oils to try on too if you’re interested. Do you have a job here yet?”
I am alert now, and I think I know where this is going. “Oh cool, where are the oils from?” I ask.
“From my business, it’s called dōTERRA!” she squeals. “I have an oil with me now, if you want to try?” She hands me a small glass vial, and I recognize the logo immediately. I read about this company in Rome, the branding of an upper echelon multi-level marketing scheme.
Misty returns, and I feel off-balance. I unceremoniously put my shoes on in the middle of their conversation. “Thanks for stopping by, but I have to take Bentley out now,” I smile insincerely up at them as I fasten your leash onto you.
“Well let us know if you ever need a sitter! Also, stop by anytime. We are having mimosas today!” Misty repeats herself breezily, like a record scratched with air, and they head back to their door.
After they disappear, we go outside to the park. The midsummer sun casts the scene ahead in a harsh relief. Light glares off nearly every surface: a bronze statue of General Grant, the water in the small fountain to the side, and even the bubbles blown by a toddling little girl. There are four quadrants to the park, and you pull me decisively to the far left, towards a little grey dog with perky ears and no leash. She sniffs your neck, but you are less polite and go straight for her butt. A stick of a man saunters behind the dog. “Don’t mind Eloise,” he says with a crinkly smile. “She’s friendly!”
I watch you with Eloise, your loosely wagging tail and erect limbs. You are charting the territory of a fresh crush, unsure of how to hold your body while cautiously making your way all over hers. I follow idly in your wake, until I hear “Eloise, back!” Your leash tightens as you try to follow the little grey dog. “Sorry,” the man says in earnest. “That’s just the park where people get drunk at night, so it’s covered in glass. We’re better off back this way.”
You whine, anxious to follow her, and I oblige. “We just moved to the city and didn’t know. You probably just saved Bentley a trip to the ER.” I am taken aback by my own candidness towards this man, but his green eyes make me feel like I am fumbling with them.
“Oh really? Well let me know if you need a tour guide, alright? Looks like Eloise wouldn’t mind showing around your boy,” the man winks, and I blush.
Time trickles slowly and enjoyably with these two. You are a creature magnetized, unable to tear yourself from her. The green poop bag furled in my fist grows damp as it goes unused, a tangible reminder that time is precious today. We have endless unpacking and furniture building left to accomplish today. Sofa deliveries to foster. A home to resurrect.
“I think I need to go home now?” I say it like a question. The word home sits thickly on my tongue, still too big for me.
“Oh,” he hesitates before he asks, “can I get your number before you go? I know some good dinner spots in the city if you ever get hungry?”
He is also speaking in questions, bending not just for permission to leave, but for a route back. I am hesitant, but I cannot deny you of your Eloise. When I reach to pull out my phone, my hand is tangled between both leashes. To let go I must follow its course. He sees that I am stuck, and as he reaches to help, the inches between us trickle away. I stand closer to him than is natural, and feel his bubblemint breath on my hair. I think his nose is a bit large for his face, but it makes him seem more relatable. I turn my head toward my purse, just in time to see you snap something brown from the bushes into your mouth. A chicken wing.
“Damn it Bentley!” I am volatile because you have terrified me. The world is full of dangers, and you run around gobbling them up. “I am so sorry, but I think I need to excavate Bentley’s throat for chicken bones.” I step away without his number.
The man flashes a dimpled smile, “Take care! Eloise and I are here every morning at this time. Her pooping habits are extremely regular.”
*****
As I rush to our building, I hear you grinding the bones with your teeth, and I panic that you will regurgitate a ragged fragment days from now. You might choke to death on it in your sleep or have your thorax ripped open from within by this Trojan Horse bone. I can’t let the past haunt you like that.
I carry you inside, split between the decision of taking the ancient elevator and the stairs. We live on the fifth floor, high enough to justify either. Though I am fueled by adrenaline, my arms burn under your 20 pounds of mass. Elevator it is.
You are sedated, tummy full after a delicious meal, but I still tap my toes anxiously. I decide to never take the elevator again. It is claustrophobic, with a hundred iterations of the same flyer plastered all over its walls. “NOTICE: Maintenance may enter premises at any time between the hours of 9 am to 3 pm Mon-Wed. Please secure animals during this time.” In a building as old as this one, I am sure this is seasonal. The flyer does not even have a date range on it.
We get off on our floor, and I carry you into our apartment and to the couch, like a surgeon to his operating table. I grab pulpy chicken and bone bits from your throat. You complain, but your canines pose no threat along my palm. Your milk-drunk eyes are full of trust, satisfaction and -- your eyes snap alert. You are in the air again.
Somehow, you launched yourself at the door before I even processed that the bell rang. I am on your tail now, but what an oxymoron, chasing you to calm you down. I wrestle you into my arms and open the door.
“Hey! This is Rob, your building manager, plumber, elevator handyman, and anything else you need!” A small, sweaty man huffs at my door, announcing himself like a circus commentator. I can tell he took the stairs. “I am just coming around to welcome you with our community's new resident wellness package!” He tepidly holds out a plastic bucket that reads “Western Management Co.” He looks anxiously at your trembling body, deleterious against my skin. I cling to you while you try to decide if you will trust Rob. Will you offer him your belly, or will I need to lock you up? I don’t find out, because the bucket is in my hands and Rob is on the stairs. You emit growls long after he is gone, your body hovering in the liminal space before familiarity.
*****
Days pass like this, each one seeping into the next. If I am not actively unpacking, my mind drifts back to him. Do you ever think of Eloise? We still sleep plastered to each other, dreaming in tandem. Three nights later, I take us back to the park.
I know where to go after replaying how I met him so many times. We start near the gate so you can pee on it, and then head towards the fountain. You abhor swimming, but love to balance along the edge of the fountain. As we walk around it, I see our reflections refract through the pennies on the fountain floor. My face is glitter in the water, and I see yours turn to dust too. We stare into the water, two little Narcissuses, when we are joined by a third.
“So you risked a trip back?” He pulls me into a hug, and I bend to give Eloise a chin scratch. She has a wispy white beard I had never noticed from my vantage above her. “I am glad you saved him from the chicken wing,” he says with pleasure lodged between brazen and demure.
“I never even caught your name,” I say, straight to my point. His smile vines across his face. “Anthony, or Tony,” he says, giving me options. “And you?”
We walk around the park, tracing and retracing our steps. We are mostly silent, the only noise is the hum of the cars, and your occasional yelps when you ask for permission to run wild with Eloise. Bentley, I know she is off-leash, but you are untrustworthy. As my arm grows tired of your tugs, I realize I am giving neither you nor Anthony the full attention I wish to. “Want to go to my place?”
*****
Indoors, we all have water. You lap it up, spraying jewels of water drops near your bowl. Eloise drinks in a slow rhythm. Anthony is outstretched on our couch, his glass precariously resting on its arm. Having him over is like a baptism. My apartment feels more mine than ever with him in it.
On the way inside, Anthony had said, “I know this building. It’s one of the oldest highrises in Philly. It’s amazing that you call it home.” I am still thinking about the veracity of that fact, if I really call it home. Does inhabiting this space make it my home? Does adopting you make you my family? It seems primordially inhuman to ask these questions - most people come into the world with an ordained home and a given family. My story started that way too, but I lost the plot when my mother took her life. I took flight, disowning my grief at the cost of my home. For the first time since we got here, I am not pondering whether I have stepped into an abyss or over a chasm. I am trying on the way he said home, and feel a twinge of recognition. I see the power I hold to inhabit a space and in the recesses of time, it will become home if I call it so.
“-- and it’s getting close to lunch, do you want to eat something?” I catch the end of Anthony’s sentence.
“Well I don’t keep food in the house,” I say and his face registers confusion, “which means we will have to go out somewhere together.” Relief cracks like an egg across face, and his smile is butter. Our siesta breaks when I hear your toenails razing the floor, your brute howls. I know this drill now, and I run to the door, where I meet you and catch you. I twist open the handle.
“I just couldn’t stay away! We’re having mimosas again, if you want to come by?”
It’s Tina at my door, and she’s holding my door open with her toe again, edging her way inside. You recognize your pretty blonde belly rub, and your snarling subdues. As she reaches over to pet you, she yelps, “IS THAT ELOISE?” The little grey dog comes over to her, tail wagging.
“What the -- Tina?” Anthony runs his hands through his hair. The tension between them is pungent.
Tina stands up abruptly, mid-belly rub, causing you to whine. She starts stuttering without words, but Anthony cuts in, “So where is Misty then? And my mom’s deposit?” Tina backs towards the door like he is intimidating her, though he hasn’t moved a muscle.
“Misty was devastated when you broke it off, you asshole. She hasn’t had time to sort through the finances,” Tina squeaks through the thin line of her mouth.
Anthony’s eyes dart back to me, gauging my reaction. He starts to speak but is cut off by Tina. “I still don’t know how she explained it to her mother, after all she went through to set you two up. It was honestly embarrassing for them,” Tina sniffs, gaining traction as she speaks. She twists the door knob and slithers out.
“Look --” Anthony begins as I shut the door, but I hold up a hand.
“We like fresh starts in this household,” I say, toying with the word ‘household’ on my tongue. “Besides, if it has to do with those slimy snake oils, I don’t even want to know.” Anthony manages a smile, his oversize nose glistening with the tension of the exchange.
*****
Tony is almost here, and I am in shambles. I have been seeing him for two weeks, and today is our first real date. Beyond the park. I am plain as a slate in my white dress, unable to find the only jewelry I own: my mother’s ring. I’ll survive being underdressed at High Tea, but the absence of the ring heightens my memories around it. It brings up the old question - did I step over a chasm, or into an abyss? Of course, I managed to hold onto the ring while traveling all over the world, but it has disappeared into this dash of home.
I try to ground my thoughts, retrace my memories, picture where I could have left it. I remember taking it from my toiletries bag the first night I was here and the painful clip of it the next morning. I remember a knock on the door, or at least your reaction to it. What did I do next? All I remember is fogginess and overwhelming uncertainty. I must have gone to the door, grabbed you as usual. I remember the instability of time and place because I didn’t yet own in my mind that this is home and you are family. I remember that my own family gave me this ring as we shattered, that my mother took it off before she died, wrote it into the will she knew they would carry out shortly. I remember Tina and Misty coming into my home, and Misty in the bathroom -- oh my god, I slipped off my ring in the bathroom.
I run back to it, rummaging through the counter and around the floor. All I can find is a vial of lavender oil. So that’s why Misty had wanted to come in here - that devious brat. Tony had told me about his relationship with Misty, how she used him as a way to his mother’s pockets. Tony’s mother was friends with Misty’s, and she had convinced her to buy Misty’s inventory under the table. She had convinced her it was fine, since they were all friends. One ecosystem. Yet, Tony’s mother remains 10k in debt and Misty is nothing but a bait of vial on my bathroom counter. She could have slipped the ring into her pocket then too.
Tony rings the buzzer and while I wait for him to come up, I do another sweep of the bathroom. I check the cracks behind the sink, the tiles by the toilet, but only the pipes flash silver back at me. I hear footsteps behind me.
“Ria, if you need to use the bathroom you have to sit on the toilet, not next to it,” Tony laughs and gives me a hug, but I am squirming. “Are you okay?”
My anxiety wells up, spitting up bits of seafoam in its tide. I blink back tears to keep my makeup from running. The reservation is coming up, and I know I am going to tea without my ring. It’s funny that something I buried for two years can leave a fresh hole in me. I tell him what happened.
Tony furrows his brow. “What if we get food, and then think about all the places the ring could go. If we don’t come up with anything, I’ll beat up Misty for you?” A laugh escapes in my hiccups. I step out the door with him.
*****
At lunch, I retrace my steps to him. I think about you, if maybe you ate my ring or knocked it down the drain. I am surprised to find that I am not mad, after it’s you. My family. Tony and I come up with absurd scenarios. Adventures for my mother’s ring to go on. What if a crow flew in and took it to build her nest? If it melted in the summer sun and reinforced the plumbing? What if the ghost of my mother claimed it back, knowing I had worn it once at last? How silly of me, to yearn for a ring that was vacant in my hands for so long. I am a fool to think I am owed things and lives and people. I know now, acutely, that I live at the whim of butterfly whispers whose reverberations cosmically amplify through the fabric of time. Even my tangible belongings find ways to break free.
When Tony drops me off at home, I feel better. I have settled into a familiar distance from my emotions, and he is quiet as he comes upstairs to get his Eloise. I see how she runs to him when we open the door, jumping high as she can to bound into his arms. He stoops to meet her - and they nestle into each other for a moment. The intimacy of their greeting is quotidian, but today I find it disarming. On the other hand, you watch me casually, enjoying the air I bring inside in a lackadaisical way. You stay there, even when I jump at my front door creaking open. In the frame stands a small man in stained white overalls. Rob stands there, holding a toolbox.
“Oh dear, I came here for maintenance,” he backs out. “I didn’t realize you were home. I’ll come back another time.” Quick as he was to walk in, he recedes back out, like an industrious ghost.
The interruptions in this home are constant, but they bother me less when Tony is here. Maybe this is what home is, an unbroken line of certainty, melting from one day to the next. When things happen, like a maintenance man barging in or the last object from your dead mother’s will going missing, they break this continuity. Now I must find a way to set it back, fit the pieces of home back together without the ring in it. Set myself back together without my mother here. But I am not doing a bad job. I walk to you and stroke your chin. You are almost asleep, calm at the sight of me in our home. The summer sun is beating through the window onto your shiny coat.
“Isn’t he usually a little rascal about strangers at the door?” Tony observes. “I guess he’s like that after he’s eaten though.”
I guess you’re waving a white flag to the concept of home. Breaking into a routine of comfort. You were handed a life, and you are at peace with it. Perhaps the ring has melded into this apartment, amalgamating my previous life into this new home. But a sudden thought breaks into my reverie, poking holes into my acceptance. I didn’t feed you today. Oh Bentley, even if our relationship has planes yet to cross, we still speak in the same dimension. We are creatures of habit, you and I, and we seek heat in the same ways. We balk at the unknown, and calm in the face of the familiar. With your silence, you’ve told me where my ring is. So I run out the door, after the man in white, the man who has been here before. He has stolen the ghost of something precious to me, and when I reclaim it, I will stake a spot for it in my new home.