Disordered Drinking, For Women
by Brooke Davis
My fisherman mom dehydrates shells on the window sills until she can shake out their wormy tenants like herbs. On the walls, she’s hung models of fish she’s caught, killed, and eaten. There are dead animals, too, courtesy of my hunter dad. A taxidermied moose head, jack rabbit, rattlesnake. We ate these in sausage form, links of protein we sliced into uniform circles. My parents lined shelves with antique vases, whose floral bellies Mom fills with sea glass. Dad’s on one of the shelves now too, in a cigar box Mom stuck shut with Gorilla Glue. When the California Surfliner train passes by, the house shakes. Dad and the vases vibrate to the edge of their shelves. Each evening, I nudge them back to safety.
Dad died two years ago when he walked into the ocean and decided to stay there. It’s a shame, really, because now I’m too “emotionally involved” to enjoy the water. I tried. But when I licked my lips, I wondered if I was tasting him or the salt and then I vomited onto a tiled pitch of butterfly clams.
It’s summer. Palm trees sketch skinny shadows on quiet sidewalks. I’m standing at Mom’s kitchen counter, halving garlic, and wondering how to tell my boyfriend that I want some time off from sleeping with him.
My boyfriend likes having sex before bed because it helps him sleep hard. I’d like to ask if he’d be willing to sleep lighter for a while. Sex has started to feel like a prerequisite to sleep. A requirement, rather than an elective. I don’t want to be touched at bedtime. I want to drool.
I slip the garlic into simmering water. The broth turns terra cotta from carrots. It’s after five, and I’m drinking an IPA. I don’t like IPAs, but the Kettle One bottle is transparent, the liquid line too clear, too concerning to my boyfriend in its daily dips. It’s harder for him to measure beer in a can. He tries to earn my eyes from the pot when he tells me, “Consuming more than seven drinks a week constitutes disordered drinking.” Then he adds, “For women.” I joke: “Measure me by the men’s limit then.” He doesn’t think it’s funny.
My boyfriend and I are both twenty-four and stagnant in Mom’s house until an unknown date in a healthier future. He has a beard and a remote job assisting his law school mentor. I have premature wrinkles and write pithy copy for a food magazine that has, since yesterday, halted production. When he asks what I’ll do if I lose my job, I tell him, “Sleep.” He’s annoyed, because he thinks I’m joking again. I’m not. I drink because it’s the closest I can get to sleeping while awake. It’s another means of manipulating my present. Of stepping away from it, or at least to its side.
My boyfriend doesn’t ask how he can help with dinner because that’s not part of our exchange. I cook. He cleans. Mom “copes,” by soaking in her bathtub with a sand castle bucket of iced Pinot Grigio. My boyfriend and I use a separate bathroom to give her “space.”
I submerge a chicken next, and cover its moonstoned skin with a lid. I find my boyfriend in the living room, using a fine-toothed comb to brush the mounted moose’s hair out of its eyes. I want to laugh at him, but don’t. I think he finds power in his cleaning. He vacuums and sands. He drowns fruit flies in jars of honeyed vinegar. Maybe he thinks that if he cleans enough, he could fix us all.
But his cleaning consistently makes me feel like I owe him something in return. Like, if I make tonight’s soup really excellent, I’ll even our tally. Then, I can ask him for nights off sex.
He tells me he’s going to take a shower while I shuck meat off the carcass. I make a martini with kalamata olives. I take it with me to our bathroom and set it on the floor while I pee. I can smell myself. It’s been a few days since I’ve showered. I hate the heavy slick of wet hair, how it clings to my neck. My boyfriend never comments on my smell or taste. It must drive him mad, given how much he enjoys cleaning. I could join him in the shower. But part of me likes being detestable. I know it’s perverse, but it’s also entertaining, passively testing his love’s limits.
I bring Mom’s soup to her bathroom. The tub water is an aged, murky grey. She says, “Thank you, Tulip.” She slurs a little. Then she smiles and adds, “You two can stay with me as long as you want,” as if we’re the ones who need help. I smile back because the three of us are playing house, assuming roles we hope make us resemble something like family.
Back in the kitchen, I find the knife and cutting board put away. The counter is damp with vinegar. This covert sanitation unsettles me. It seems sneaky and competitive. I sip the martini to trick myself into feeling lighter and content. The kalamatas soil the vodka purple, as if it’s from the ground, and natural. I pretend it’s a health drink. It’s good for me.
My boyfriend and I eat at the table. “The soup is delicious,” he says. “Really excellent.” There it is, my moment to postpone bedtime lovemaking. But then he asks, “What number drink is this?”
I run my finger round my glass’s rim. I don’t answer his question, so I don’t pose mine. It’s a delicate loop, the current state of our shared life. We eat together quietly.
Finally, he tidies the silence by repeating, “The soup is delicious.”
“Thank you,” I answer.
The Surfliner train roars past. My boyfriend holds the shaking dinner table steady. I secure Dad and the vases on their shelves. I hear the throated drain of bath water, and the squeal of the tap as the basin refills. We finish our meal. I’m thirsty again.
Brooke Davis is from Southern California. She is an MFA candidate in Fiction at Columbia University, and is working on short stories and a novel.
