They Only Eat Their Husbands Page 12

  An hour later, I boarded a tourist bus to the Great Wall of China. It was six hours round-trip to our particular destination, known as the Wild Wall. It was worth the long drive to leave behind Beijing’s high-rise human cartons, apartment balconies piled with boxes and bikes and laundry, and bare treetops flowering with the shredded pink and blue shopping bags carried aloft by the city’s grimy winds. It was worth it to see the rugged section of the Great Wall that rolls up and down the dun, grassy, roller-coaster hills of Simatai.

  Unlike Beijing, a few scattered huts were the only signs of civilization. Unlike the Great Wall in Beijing, the Wild Wall wasn’t overrun with tourists and vendors. However, the moment our bus arrived, we were each selected by a local villager to be chaperoned for our walk along the wall, whether we wanted this service or not.

  My chaperone was an elderly woman, with hair pulled back in a gray-streaked bun. She scurried silently behind me, until I remembered the advice of the American hostellers. I stopped, turned, and barked, “Bú yào!” (Don’t want!) When my feet halted, her feet halted. But she only smiled and chattered to me in Chinese (or some other language). As soon as my feet resumed the uphill trudge, she began following again. I stopped again and shouted more aggressively, “Bú yào! Bú yào!” Again she politely halted, until I started walking. Then she resumed following. I gave up and simply ignored her as she trailed me up the wall like a shadow.

  I didn’t realize until we arrived that we’d be able to walk atop the wall. The steps were inconsistent: sometimes tiny and close together, forcing me to take mincing footsteps; other times giant-size, requiring me to scramble on hands and feet; yet other times so erratic it looked as if the builders had been working without sleep. The flowing ribbon of rough-hewn brick marched unevenly over hill after hill, indifferent to the terrain. Walking on those steps leading endlessly one into another, I wondered where my life was going.

  I followed the wall over the crests of three hills, until my calves protested each uneven step: “Bú yào, bú yào, bú yào.” Then the dry, dusty air and lack of sleep began to get to me. Feeling as if I were going to faint, I turned back.

  I felt relieved when my shadow woman abandoned me and attached herself to someone with more staying power. But my luck didn’t last. Another shadow adopted me for the return trip. This one was younger, maybe in her forties. Shadow Number Two kept grabbing my arm along the steep spots, saying, “Careful, careful.” I would have felt safer if she’d left me the hell alone; the way she kept unexpectedly grabbing my arm threw me off balance. When I stopped to rest, she theatrically pointed to a village in the valley below and said, “Mon-golia,” then she pointed the other way and said, “Bei-jing.”

  I bought a postcard from Shadow Number Two. It cost two yuan, a rip-off at local prices, but it was the only way to get rid of her before she mentioned her hungry children for the tenth time. This was a bad habit for a budget traveler to get into. I would see many more poor people on my journey and I didn’t have enough money to save them. But I was too tired to resist.

  Before I left Shadow Number Two behind, I turned for a last look at the wall. That’s when I spotted a section on the wall’s lower side where someone had written, in large letters, “I love you Nicky.” What kind of person scribbles graffiti on the Great Wall of China? It must have been a man, I thought. Who else would try to express love with an act of destruction? “Bú yào to that!” I said to the wall. Shadow Number Two turned her mystified gaze to the unoffending wall. I turned and walked away. This time she didn’t follow.

  The Last Frontier

  thirty-three years old

  Saying “bú yào” in any language has never worked well for me. Whenever I’ve said “don’t want” to the men in my life, they’ve reacted like the Shadow Women of Simatai: halting for a moment, then following me again the moment they thought I wasn’t looking.

  After the kayak trip, I conjured up enough self-control to stay away from Chance . . . for six whole days. Then Kaitlin came by my apartment for a visit and broke the spell.

  I’d already told her the story, and she’d already told me several times that she wished she’d never introduced us. Still, I couldn’t resist asking, “So, have you seen Chance lately?”

  “Yes, and I hope I don’t ever see that asshole again!”

  “Why? What did he do now?”

  “He had an appointment with me to look at some houses—and he brought Autumn with him! I was so pissed at him for putting me on the spot like that. It was incredibly awkward.”

  I barely spoke after that.

  When Kaitlin left she took one look at my stony face and said, “Cara? You’re going over there aren’t you? Oh God, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t go over there tonight, okay? Look, at least wait until tomorrow. Give yourself a chance to think.”

  But the moment she was gone, I drove straight to his place, my body a tight knot of pugnacious fury. It was late. He opened the door a crack to see who it was. I presented a front of perfect calm, my breathing even, my face void of expression.

  “Cara . . . hi . . . ” There was a note of confusion in his voice. “I was going to call you.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  “Sure.” He opened the door wider, but studied my face with suspicion. I pushed past him to the living room, to the futon where he slept, half-expecting to see her there. She wasn’t.

  “What’re you doing?!” he asked.

  Not answering, I strode into the laundry room where he hung his keys, took his key to my apartment off the hook, and turned to face him, my consuming anger unmasked. “I don’t want to see you! I don’t want you to call me! I don’t want you to even think of me again! And Kaitlin doesn’t want anything to do with you!”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Kaitlin told me. She told me about Autumn coming with you to look at houses. To look at houses?! With Kaitlin?! She’s my best friend. How could you do that to her? How could you do that to me?”

  “I didn’t ask Autumn to come with me. She invited herself along.”

  “You couldn’t say ‘no’? I thought you said you weren’t going to see her anymore.”

  As if someone had flipped a switch, his expression turned ugly. “Okay, that’s enough! Get out!” He grabbed me by the collar and started hauling me down the hallway like a bouncer handling a belligerent drunk.

  A moment earlier I would have been glad to leave, but I didn’t want to be pushed. I started digging my feet in like a cartoon cat, skidding and sliding across the floor as he propelled me toward the door. My wrath dissolved, replaced by shameless pleading and clinging. “Wait a minute! Just tell me why! Make me understand! Wait! I deserve to know what happened.”

  He stopped, and we stood comically frozen in mid-struggle as he said, “Oh come on. You were there, that night on the island. I thought you said you heard.”

  “I said I heard enough. At that point I was still hoping Mike only caught you kissing. But you slept with her. It was an affair. Come on! I want to hear you say it. How many times?”

  “I don’t know. A few.”

  “Since when?”

  “Maybe nine months or so.”

  “That’s almost the entire time we’ve been together!”

  He looked surprised.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not what you told Mike.”

  “I wanted to give them a chance to work things out. I kept meaning to end it.”

  “How did he find out?”

  “He saw us together—we weren’t making love, we weren’t even kissing, but we were sitting way too close. It was obvious what was going on.” Then it all came pouring out of him: “I never meant for it to happen. At first it made sense for us to spend time together, because I was giving her business advice. But it became clear
there was an attraction. So we drew a line: we said we’d just be friends. But as a friend she was always telling me about her marriage problems. She told me it made her feel better to talk to me. She made me feel like a hero. I know we shouldn’t have made love, but in some ways it made me feel like a good guy, because it seemed like she was neglected and abused, and she needed the love and attention I gave her.”

  “What about the love and attention I needed?”

  “At the beginning, when you seemed so lonely, I felt like you needed me. But you don’t really need me the way she does.”

  “So I have to be abused and neglected before my needs are worth your attention? So if I was more helpless, that would’ve done the trick? You don’t think I needed you?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not talking about being a black hole of emotional need. I’m talking about really needing me. All you ever do is complain.”

  “The only thing I complained about was the amount of time you spent with Autumn. Anyway, if I was so awful to be with, you could’ve left. When you started sleeping with her we hadn’t been together that long. Why not dump me then?”

  “For God’s sake, can’t you ever just listen? You wanted to know what happened—I told you. I’m not defending it. Anyway, whatever’s wrong with you and me isn’t her fault. If our relationship had been any good none of this would’ve happened. It’s not Autumn’s fault you can’t nab a husband. And frankly, it’s not my fault either. So stop trying to blame us!”

  Devastated, I said nothing, just stared at him, my jaw working, my eyes hot and dry.

  My silence only seemed to enrage him more. “Most people would see this as a cue to leave. What are you still doing here?”

  With that, he dragged me toward the door again, and I dragged my feet again. When we reached the door, he flung it open and shoved me into the hall. I flew backwards, lost my footing, and fell. As my head slammed into the floor, I heard a loud crack, saw a flash of light, felt a jolt of pain. Then . . . nothing but cold, hard tile. I lay still for a moment, stunned. Then I curled into a ball and muttered to myself, “Oh my God.”

  “Oh get up! It’s not that bad,” Chance said and walked inside.

  It was an accident. He had asked me to leave, and I had dragged my feet. He’d only meant to push me out the door, and I’d slipped. It wasn’t fear or physical pain that kept me curled up on the floor. It was the realization of the depth to which I’d allowed my self-respect to fall. For perhaps two endless minutes I lay there, not knowing how to compose myself from my prone position into some dignified form of departure. The scariest thing was: I didn’t want to leave.

  “Cara,” he whispered from inside the condo. “Cara, come here.”

  I slowly rose, floated inside like a sleepwalker, and sat on the falling edge of the futon.

  His face was a miserable blur of pity and disgust. “How’s your head?”

  “I think I have a bump.”

  “Here, let’s see . . . ” He pulled me closer and gently rubbed the back of my head. “Oh! You really do have a bump . . . I’m sorry.”

  He put his arms around me and we didn’t say much after that. Although his embrace was gentle, it wasn’t comforting. Something in his touch made me itch to be alone. But my sudden need for solitude felt foreign to me, and I ignored it.

  ***

  Autumn and Chance did stop seeing each other once Mike forbid it. Even after Autumn and Mike divorced, she and Chance still avoided meeting, because she didn’t want to risk losing her kids in a custody battle and Chance didn’t want to risk gaining her kids in the same battle. As for Chance and me, my guess is he couldn’t bring himself to face the long winter nights alone. So, by default, I won custody of the boyfriend.

  As I had predicted on the kayak trip, having wronged me, he felt he owed me. And as I had predicted on our first date, believing he owed me, he resented me. I only hoped that, with the competition out of the way, sooner or later he would get over his resentment and remember how great he used to think I was.

  I grew determined to take Autumn’s place as his sidekick, and I believed the best way to do that was to remind him of my adventurous spirit. Chance was more addicted to adventure than alcohol. So in late March, as winter grudgingly held onto spring, we drove to the World Extreme Skiing Championships in Thompson Pass. The skiing event was an annual excuse for Chance’s paragliding buddies to get together for some winter flying. It would also give the two of us a chance to bond again while he taught me a fun survival skill: how to build a snow cave.

  When we arrived at the pass, the afternoon light was stretched thin and we were road-weary and hungry. We hit the local lodge, hoping for a warm meal. The front door was off its hinges and a chill wind whistled through the joint. The kitchen had run out of about half the items on the chalkboard menu, including steaks, lettuce, and rice. The two scruffy gents who ran the place managed to scrape up a couple of burgers and half a cup of hot chocolate—with that, they were out of milk. When we tried to order dessert and heard, “Sorry, we’re outta that, too,” we couldn’t stop giggling. Our laughter began to thaw the ice that lingered between us.

  One thing the lodge never seemed to run out of was beer. So by the time Chance was ready to leave, it was dark and freezing outside, and he was less than evenly heeled. It was too late to build a snow cave, so he hatched a new plan. He began to create a makeshift tent on top of his Land Cruiser by attaching a pole to his roof rack and lashing a tarp to it. He wouldn’t consider sleeping inside the SUV, because it was too full of food and gear.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  “You leave everything to me!” he said with the borrowed good cheer of excess drink. “I’ll have this up in no time.”

  A guy who was camping nearby shook his head at the sight of Chance’s animated blue tarp gyrating and cursing atop the SUV. Bill—who was about our age with a tangled ponytail and a bird’s nest beard—offered us his second tent. I was tempted, but Chance called out from inside the gesticulating tarp, “Thanks, but we’ve got everything under control here!”

  Bill left.

  About fifteen minutes later he returned, pointed behind me, and said, “It’s there if you need it. You’re more than welcome.” He’d pitched his second tent anyway. Chance was still wrestling with the tarp.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I know Chance. He’ll never give up, even if it kills him.”

  “What if it kills you?”

  Chance finally bullied his listing tent into place, flaccid tarp dangling from drunken pole. “There. Isn’t it great?” he asked with the pride of a suburban dad who’s just put up a sundeck.

  I laughed with delight at the unusual sight.

  “What?” he asked, looking downcast at my reaction.

  “Nothing. I just can’t believe you did it. I’m impressed.” I really was.

  Chance wrapped his arms around me, and we took a moment to stare up at the great wheel of stars that sparkled overhead.

  Bill walked up to us and held out his binoculars. “Have you seen the comet yet?”

  “Hayakatuke?” Chance asked.

  “Hayakutake,” I corrected him.

  “Whatever,” he said. I knew it annoyed him when I corrected him, but the compulsion was as hard to control as a sneeze.

  “No, I haven’t seen it,” I said to Bill. “Thanks.” I accepted the binoculars, and he directed my gaze toward the small streak of light inching across the sky. “That’s amazing!”

  “Just think: it’ll take about 72,000 years for it to come around again,” Bill said.

  “Just enough time for you to put up another tent,” I said to Chance.

  “Very funny.”

  When the cold became unbearable, we bundled up in several layers of clothing, clambered atop the roof, and shimmied into our sleeping bags. The roof rack dug into our backs, and wind crept under t
he tent. When I began to shiver, Chance put his sleeping bag over me and mumbled, “Don’t want my little treasure to get cold.”

  ***

  In the morning, we met several paraglider pilots at a nearby hill called Blue Ice Bump. Chance and his friends spent the next couple of hours attempting to turn disagreeable crosswinds and a slope of unremarkable height into an exciting day of flying. The struggle to get their canopies in the air was long and the flights down the abbreviated hill were short. Still, from a spectator’s standpoint, the sight of ribbons of color falling through a crisp blue sky was satisfying.

  Meanwhile, I strapped on my downhill skis and skied the humble little bump. The ride down lasted less than fifteen seconds, while the hike back up took at least five sweaty, tendon-stretching minutes. A lesser optimist would have given up after the first try. I skied it twice.

  As the afternoon sun wore down to a pale wick, Chance and I realized we needed to get to work on the snow cave. We found a spot to build it on the backside of Blue Ice Bump. Chance produced a small shovel and started digging a hole in the snow, a satisfied look of concentration on his face. After digging down a bit, he started tunneling into the side of the hill. Then he carved out blocks of snow, and I climbed down into the hole to toss them out. After we established a tunnel, he widened the far end into a small cavern. We switched tasks a few times, and soon the only sounds were the muffled thuds of shovels and thrown blocks of snow, and our own heavy breathing.

  Then the sky turned violet and the temperature began to drop. We’d been out in the cold for five hours and we’d been working on the cave for about an hour of that. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast. My stomach growled, my muscles ached, and my clothes were damp and cold with sweat (despite my high-tech, moisture-wicking underwear). Chance asked if I wanted to stop. Before I could answer, he went on to say we should finish the cave before the evening grew much darker or colder. “Let’s keep going,” I said, knowing he hated it when I complained.