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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780983677482 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pfp Publishing |
| Publication date: | 08/27/2011 |
| Pages: | 396 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.88(d) |
About the Author
Elizabeth Searle is the author of My Body to You, which won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. She teaches in the graduate writing program at Emerson College in Boston.
Read an Excerpt
A Four-Sided Bed
By Elizabeth Searle
Graywolf Press
Copyright © 1998 Elizabeth SearleAll right reserved.
ISBN: 1-55597-265-9
Chapter One
My Body to YouAbove me, a boy is trying to guess my sex.
Bird scribbled in a pocket notebook, in print too fine for the boy to see. He hung from a metal bar, his body suspended at a slant. As the train jolted into motion, Bird's head almost bumped his crotch. Maybe Bird's new and bristling crew cut singed his zipper. He smelled of subway: smoke and sweat and year-old urine. The subhuman way, Kin called it. Face downcast, Bird scooted back on the plastic seat. The boy's eyes darted, lighting on three triangle points of interest. Bird's oversized brown leather jacket-Jimmy Joe's old jacket-was zipped; Bird's jeans were baggy. Nothing gave her away.
'We go-oh-' a drunk-sounding little kid called out above the whine of the rails. Bird's high-laced high-tops pressed the shuddery rubber floor, firm as a surfer's bare feet on a board. Between them, she gripped a swollen travel bag.
Metal shrieked. Loose face flesh jiggled. The train rocked and Bird rocked with it. 7 a.m. Boston time, her flight to New York due at 8:15. New York, then New Haven. The hanging boy's body swayed, loosely jointed. Under her jacket, Bird's breasts bounced. Could he see? Bird's head felt bare, no more soft curtain of white-blond hair to hide behind. She raised only her eyes, only an inch.
A zipper glinted between vertical lips of denim. As the boy shifted his weight, a diamond of white cotton flashed. Surrender flag. Did he know it was open? Boldly, sizing up Another Would-Be Assailant, Bird followed his body. Usually, she didn't raise her eyes. Girls can't; bold boys can. This one had Kin's build: all bone and muscle, lean as a whippet. No visible jiggles. His knee twitched, rhythmically. Coursing with Hormones, Kin would say. His black T-shirt sleeves were rolled up, a la James Dean.
Rebel without a Brain, Kin might murmur. Even here-underground, where it was dangerous-Bird gave a full-lipped dare of a smile. Keeping her mouth closed, as always; hiding her crooked teeth.
Rebel flicked his eyes down to her, then back up to the metal bar he gripped. A boy. Who thought Bird was another boy, coming on to him?
Her flat nipples prickled. Something to report to Kin, she decided as they all leaned left. Metal gave its plaintive subway shriek. Underneath the train's cradle motion, she felt in the fleshy parts of her body the jagged galloping rhythm of wheels clacking on track. Rebel's zipper vibrated delicately.
In Boston bars, Man Ray or Boy's Club, Kin used to sneak glances below the belt. Crotch Watching. This was back when they both lived in Boston: after Mass. Mental and before Kin signed on with Pan Am. Bird used to sit in the dark with Kin and fifty-odd men, 50 percent of them dressed as women.
They-the subhuman strangers-straightened again like blown candle flames. Rebel stood at attention as if her smile had been a soldierly salute. Was this how boy flirted with boy? Wheels clacked down the track, panting faster. I want, you know, to know. She wrote this line to Kin, in the new notebook he hadn't yet seen. What better time to find out than today, our wedding day?
'We he-ere!' the kid screeched, matching the shrill pitch of the brakes.
As a Pan Am employee-a steward among stewardesses-Kin Hwang was entitled to fly for free with his spouse. Wherever, whenever. All they had to do was get married. Officially. This is an official proposal, Kin had told her over long-distance months ago, after she told him she was giving up on men. But Birdy, Kin had exclaimed in breathless imitation of a woman's voice. So am I!
Really? She gripped her denim knees hard so her boyish knuckles stood out. The cracked collar of her air-force jacket made her neck itch. Jimmy Joe, that itch always made her think. A vaster itch, unscratchable. She tightened her fingers one by one. 8:15 flight to NY, 1 p.m. ceremony in Queens. Then a plane and bus to New Haven, if JJ didn't show. Would he, after all these years?
'He-ere!'
At the last shuddery swerve, Rebel gave an Elvis thrust. His hipbones framing her forehead, he held a limbo pose. Underground Etiquette.
'Whoa-!'
She let her body pitch forward as the train straightened. A jolt.
Real Sugar and Twice the Caffeine! Bird pulled back fast, her head electrified. His cowboy cry had been harsh, his crotch shockingly soft, a springy mushroom pillow. Just barely butted. Family Jewels, Kin's mother had taught him to call his own, as if they were shiny and gem-hard and indestructible. Bird's scalp tingled. Fine hairs quivered on the bared back of her neck.
Swans, Kin had murmured one night, in high school. They were watching To Have and Have Not on his mother's white leather couch. They never kissed, not then and not later. Swans, he'd repeated, rubbing his neck against hers, slow and hard. Her neck felt long, curved, warm, then warmer. His Adam's apple filled the hollow of her throat as if she'd swallowed it whole. This must be. His breath had cooled her skin. How swans neck.
'Sorry,' Bird mumbled to Rebel as the train brakes tightened their bite. She raised her eyes, her hardened lashes. Mascara. Her one mistake.
His eyes were brown, but blank as blue. His train-shaken face was city white, speckled by purple. James Dean, with acne. Young Jimmy Joe, without-maybe he would've been better off without-his beautifully convoluted brain. Bird bent forward, her braless breasts swaying in her jacket. Did Family Jewels hang as soft and tender as breasts? A question no one on Earth could answer.
Grabbing her overstuffed bag, she sprang up: Jill-in-a-Box. Swing your partner, do-si-do. Bird ducked under the sweat-smelling bridge of Rebel's bare arms. Free, she told herself as they bumped hips. Both bony. The AIRPORT stop skidded into the murky underground light.
'Sorry man,' Rebel mumbled under the climactic screech, giving both words sarcastic emphasis. Bird pushed past a fat girl reading a sci-fi paperback. Caves of Steel. Sweaty flesh brushed Bird's leather arms. Metal scraped metal: a chorus of high-pitched dog whistles, each straining to hit the same note.
Round the world, Kin had promised. Puerto Rico, Cairo, Hong Kong. Hot places, she'd told him. Even now-in August, in leather-her bones felt cold.
En Caso De Emergencia, said a sign above the door. Rebel elbowed aside the oblivious Caves of Steel dweller. At the final jolt of the halt, he pressed against Bird. She clenched her ass muscles the way she did when, after temp service-typing jobs in nylons and high heels, she felt businessmen press her in the crush of rush hour. Her ass trembled, firm as any boy's. The scratched Plexiglas doors vibrated, trying to open. If Kin stood behind her now, would he think she was a boy? Would he feel-as she did, for once-turned on?
Bird made a fist. In the past year, she'd met a number of fairly nice men. Her first Would-Be Affair lasted three weeks, her last three months. A pattern that had begun to resemble the Morse Code's International Signal for Distress.
She rapped Plexiglas. On the other side, dumb waiting faces stared up. Would Kin make her break that pattern in New Haven? With Jimmy Joe, once again? Smoky boy's breath filled her ear. Her own breath caught. If you're ever trapped in a locked car with some maniac clawing at the windows, Mother had told her years before, give the horn three short, three long, three short. SOS.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Four-Sided Bed by Elizabeth Searle Copyright © 1998 by Elizabeth Searle. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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What People are Saying About This
"Elizabeth Searle writes with intelligence, passion, and wit. She's one of the best young writers around."
"Elizabeth Searle writes like a poet, evoking her people with haunting intimacy and graceful lyricism."
"A Four-Sided Bed is a riverting study in human passions, desires and needs. Narrowly evocative, we are pulled into the lives of four very different individuals and the ties that connect them."