A Theory of Small Earthquakes Read online

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Zoe blurted. “I’m going away.”

  Alison’s heart lurched.

  “Remember I told you about Corrine, my friend from boarding school? She invited me to her parents’ winter place in Aspen for Christmas break.”

  Alison imagined herself on the deserted campus for three weeks, alone. Eating Top Ramen for Christmas dinner, alone. Seeing movies at the Apollo, alone. She saw Zoe on a ski lift, red cheeked and laughing, cuddled cozily on a fireside ski lodge couch. “Sounds fun,” Alison said, fighting to keep her feelings off her face.

  “I’m going to ask Corrine if I can bring you along,” Zoe said. “Her parents’ house is huge. They won’t even know you’re there.”

  Alison felt like she’d been slapped. “The invisible Jew,” she said. “The perfect accessory for the Christmas table.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “Whatever you meant, thanks but no thanks.” Zoe seemed to have forgotten everything she knew about Alison—that she couldn’t afford to fly to Aspen, that she was nervous around strangers, especially rich WASP strangers, that she’d never skied.

  “Are you worried about the money?” Zoe asked. “I’ll buy the tickets.”

  “I’m not worried about the money. I don’t have the money. And I’m not your Christmas charity.”

  “No, you’re not,” Zoe said quietly. “You’re my friend.”

  She closed the trunk lid, sat down on it, and pulled Alison down next to her. “I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “I told you about the trip in the worst possible way. I don’t blame you for being upset.”

  Alison felt like a punctured balloon, the anger hissing out of her. “I’m an idiot,” she said.

  “Come to Aspen. It’ll be our Christmas presents to each other.”

  Alison adjusted her weight so her hip was no longer touching Zoe’s. “You should be glad I’m not coming,” she said. “I’m saving you eight nights of Hanukkah gifts.”

  “Such a deal,” Zoe said dryly. “But I thought you don’t celebrate Jewish holidays.”

  Alison looked at her Swatch and jumped to her feet. “If we don’t leave this minute, we’ll be late. You know I hate to miss the coming attractions.”

  After the movie they went to the Tap House, split a bottle of Mateus rosé, and argued about the film. Alison said the book had been a hundred times better. Zoe hadn’t read it, but that didn’t keep her from swearing that no book could beat Meryl Streep’s performance. Alison thought, but didn’t say, that Zoe looked a bit like Meryl Streep.

  Instead she told Zoe that her mother had hated Germans, whether they’d been born before, during, or after the Holocaust. Zoe confessed that her great-uncle had been a fanatical fan of Hitler. Alison confessed that every time she saw a movie or read a book about the Nazis, she promised herself she’d never do it again, but then the next one came along and she just had to.

  They stumbled out of the bar into bone-chilling air. Alison’s fingers tingled inside her wool gloves. “Maybe we should call a cab,” she said, her breath billowing from her mouth.

  Zoe whipped the orange cashmere scarf off her neck and wrapped it around Alison’s. “C’mon, wimpy wimp,” she said. “We’ll walk fast.”

  Alison couldn’t walk fast. She was too cold, too buzzed, too upset by the film and by the argument she and Zoe had had before the film, and by the thought of being alone on campus for three whole weeks over Christmas, the time of year she always felt loneliest.

  “You’re such a cheap date,” Zoe said. “Half a bottle of wine and look at you. Wino!” She started walking backward, her laughing eyes on Alison’s.

  “Look who’s talking.” Alison’s tongue was thick. “I’m not the one who’s walking backward.”

  It seemed too cold for snow, but fat flakes started falling, a thick white blanket flung across the night. “God, it’s gorgeous.” Zoe threw her head back and stuck out her tongue. Alison watched snowflakes melting in Zoe’s mouth. Her own teeth were chattering.

  “You’re freezing, poor thing.” Zoe pointed to an old stone church across the street. “Let’s go warm up in there.”

  “Is it open this late?” Alison asked.

  “God’s house is always open.” Grinning, Zoe wrapped her arm around Alison’s shoulders and pulled her along. Through her woozy wine haze, Alison felt the swell of Zoe’s breast against her arm.

  She let Zoe lead her up the snowy stone steps and she let Zoe pull the heavy wooden church door open and she let Zoe lead her inside. The door thumped shut behind them. They stood in the vestibule, nearly nose to nose, staring at each other. Snow glittered like bits of broken glass in Zoe’s spiky black hair.

  Were there people in the pews, praying, or waiting for a break in the storm? Was a priest watching from the altar, waiting to see what might happen next? Alison had time to wonder but no time to find out.

  Zoe pulled Alison’s glove off her right hand and stuffed it into her own jacket pocket. She took Alison’s hand and rubbed her fingers, slowly, one finger and then the next. Alison wished she had twenty more fingers. Don’t stop. A hundred fingers. Please.

  Zoe took Alison’s other hand. Alison was sweating and shivering, her vision blurring or votive candles flickering, or maybe she was having a dream. She panted shallowly, paralyzed in place.

  Alison rocked on her feet. Zoe caught her. She unzipped Alison’s jacket and slipped her hands under Alison’s sweater and found the flesh beneath her thin silk chemise.

  Zoe pressed the hot palms of her hands against the cold curve of Alison’s waist. Her hands were moist and rough, a cat’s sandpaper tongue.

  “I want to kiss you,” she said. “Can I kiss you, Alison?”

  No, Alison meant to say.

  5.

  oberlin college

  January–March 1984

  Alison awoke alone in her bed for the first time in weeks. She stretched her legs across the expanse of icy sheet and pulled Zoe’s pillow to her face, inhaling her patchouli scent.

  Zoe was away for five days, on a road trip with her painting class, taking a tour of Midwest art museums. Alison was grateful for the break in the action, for a chance to touch her own fingers to her own toes, to take stock of who she was three months into the first love of her life. She hadn’t felt this raw, this smitten, this terrified since her dad’s death.

  She got dressed, stripped the bed, and carried a pillowcase bulging with linens down to the laundry room. Taking one last whiff of patchouli-scented pillowcase, she shoved a quarter into the machine to start the load.

  Alison didn’t want to go back to her cold, empty room. She plucked the remote from its holster on the wall, clicked on the small TV that hung from the ceiling, tuned in to CBS Morning, and sank into the sagging easy chair.

  “A healthy baby was born today at the UCLA Medical Center,” Charles Kuralt was saying. “But this was no ordinary baby. This was the first live birth in history to result from transferring a developing embryo from one woman to another.”

  An animated graphic illustrated the process as Kuralt described it: “An embryo was conceived in Woman A by artificial insemination. That developing embryo was then implanted in the uterus of Woman B, who gave birth thirty-eight weeks later. The sperm used in the artificial insemination came from the husband of Woman B, the woman who bore the baby.” Kuralt shook his head. “If you could follow all that,” he said, looking directly into the camera, “you’re doing better than I am. Now, a word from our sponsor.”

  The commercial rolled. White men with shaved heads marched in lockstep, Nazi style. A muscular woman in a tank top and running shorts hurled a sledgehammer at the projected image of a Hitlerian leader as he boomed, “We. Shall. Prevail.” And then a calm voice announced, “On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

  Alison sighed. Zoe had been trying to talk her into giving up her typewriter for a word processor. Luckily, Alison could
n’t afford one, let alone a $1,500 computer. But she saw that train speeding down the tracks at her, whether she wanted the change or not, whether she could afford it or not. Three months ago she would have said the same things about being lovers with Zoe. And now she was waiting for Zoe to come back to her bed.

  Alison flicked the channel to the local news, not quite admitting to herself what she was watching for: an accident on a local highway, a van full of Oberlin students dead.

  Please come home, she begged Zoe silently. Then the movie in her head began to play—not 1984, but 1971.

  “You know, your father adored me until you came along,” Alison’s mother was telling her. They were in the backseat of a black limousine, being driven home from her father’s funeral.

  Her mother was sitting as far from Alison as she could. But still, every time Alison took a breath, she inhaled her mother’s sour-sweet perfume, her Aqua Net hair spray, the mothballs from the closet where she hung her fur coat.

  “I was thin then. Thin and beautiful,” her mother went on. “That’s what he called me, you know. ‘Beautiful.’”

  He called me that too, Alison thought. Her mother pulled her fur coat tight across her enormous chest. “He worshipped me. Couldn’t do enough for me. Until you came along.” She smoothed her black skirt over her black-stockinged knees. “After that, all I ever heard was Alison this, Alison that. My beautiful little Alison.”

  Alison’s eyes, inflamed from days of crying, filled with fresh tears. If I were a good girl, she thought, I’d lie and tell her that Daddy loved her more than he loved me.

  Alison inched across the spongy leather seat until her skinny leg, swaddled in two pairs of black tights, touched the soft fur of her mother’s coat. Her mother didn’t seem to notice. Now that Daddy’s gone, Alison thought, maybe we can be sad together.

  She opened her mouth to comfort her mother. What came out wasn’t what she meant to say. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said—truthfully, hurtfully, two things that often seemed to go together when Alison spoke.

  Her mother’s swollen eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared. “Whose fault was it, then?” she hissed at Alison. “Whose stupid little stories did he rush home to read every night? You think he was driving fast the night he died to get home to me?”

  Alison stared at her mother in horror, hoping she’d take it back. But she turned away, staring out the tinted window.

  When her mother told her that her dad had died in a car wreck, Alison’s first thought was, It was my fault. Now she knew it was true.

  Who would love her now that her dad was gone? Who would she love? If her father’s death was really her fault, did she even deserve to be loved?

  “He cared about you, too,” Alison said to her mother’s back. Over her mother’s shoulder, the trees’ bare, black branches rolled slowly backward. “He told me that all the time.”

  Her mother whipped her head around. “How dare you?” she spat. “You selfish bitch.”

  A ball of fire burned in Alison’s belly. As quickly as it erupted, her rage dissolved. She felt empty, suddenly, a cracked glass of water. She felt she was a meteor, tethered to nothing and no one, lost in space.

  Over the next few months, her mother seemed to double in size. When Alison came home from school, she’d find half-empty Entenmann’s cake boxes on the kitchen counter, empty ice cream tubs stuffed into the trash. She’d rummage through the fridge, looking for something to eat among the loaves of Roman Meal diet bread, square packages of low-cal, sliced Kraft American cheese, moldering grapefruits, pink cans of Tab.

  “Don’t eat my diet stuff. You’re too skinny as it is,” her mother would say from her spot at the kitchen table, where she sat each day in a shapeless silk caftan, sipping daintily from a square glass of vodka and ice. “Go get a milkshake or something. Put some meat on your bones.”

  Alison wondered why her mother didn’t know what she knew. Food couldn’t fill the hole her father’s death had left. Alison had filled her emptiness with steely resolve. She was alone in the world and she knew it. She didn’t have her dad to protect her anymore. She had to learn to protect herself, and she did. She promised herself she’d never count on anyone else the way she’d counted on him.

  As she got older, Alison realized that the wall she’d built around herself didn’t just protect her. It imprisoned her too. It made her distrust people who were kind to her and scorn anyone who wasn’t. It made her schoolmates dislike her, her teachers punish her, and the boys she dated stop dating her. It made her desperate to be a mother, and it made her despair that she’d never find a husband so she could be one.

  Soon after they met, Alison told Zoe that she’d always been difficult. Zoe laughed and said, “You’re not difficult for me.” Alison had argued with her, but now she saw that it was true. When Zoe suggested a play to see, a walk to take, a sexier outfit to wear, Alison always found herself saying yes.

  Which movie should they see? They were both orphans, so no to the sobbing Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment; yes to Flashdance with sexy Jennifer Beals. Which records should they buy? Yes to Cyndi Lauper and David Bowie; no to Boy George.

  When Alison wanted pizza, Zoe said she was drooling for mushrooms and peppers. When Alison wanted Chinese, Zoe had an instant longing for mu shu tofu. And when Zoe had one of her weird cravings—frozen microwave burritos from the corner liquor store, bananas slathered with Marshmallow Fluff, “dinners” in bed of Cheese Nips and Moët & Chandon—Alison gamely burned her mouth on molten cheese and gummed down sticky bananas, reveling in her own unexpected acquiescence and in Zoe’s delight.

  Zoe didn’t make fun of people the way Alison did, but she didn’t judge Alison for her judgments. She said she was “entertained” by Alison’s rants. Most of the time, Zoe’s unconditional adoration made Alison calmer and happier than she’d ever been. Sometimes it made her feel like an imposter, imitating a less difficult, more compliant version of herself. How could it be? And yet it seemed true: unlike Alison herself, Zoe wasn’t waiting for Alison to change.

  Alison heard familiar footsteps, pounding down the hall toward her room. Before the thought—she really did come back—had quite registered, the door flew open and she was safe again, her good self again, in Zoe’s arms. “I missed you so much,” Zoe crooned into her ear.

  “I missed you too.”

  “Baby.” Zoe pulled Alison close, stroked her back, worked one hand between her legs. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Zoe backed them up the few steps to the bed and kneeled over Alison, pulling Alison’s sweater over her head, unbuttoning her 501s. “I missed this so much.” Zoe feathered kisses over Alison’s belly, licked her thighs apart. “Keep your eyes open, Al,” she whispered. “Be with me.”

  Alison moaned, masking a flash of irritation. Why was Zoe asking for more when Alison was turned on, wanting, ready? “I’m with you,” she murmured, stroking the back of Zoe’s head. Now, she willed Zoe, please make me come.

  When they were finished, Zoe drew the sheet over them and held Alison close. “How are you, babe?” she asked in the probing voice that meant “Fine” would not do. Men are so much easier, Alison thought in a wild moment of regret. When I had sex with men, I could just have sex.

  “You don’t have to protect yourself from me.” Zoe stroked her hair. “Are you scared, Al?” she asked.

  What would I be afraid of, Alison started to say. But a big yes rose from deep in her belly. It washed away the anger she was trying to hang onto, the wall she was trying to erect. “I am,” Alison whispered. “I am scared.” She started to cry.

  Zoe held Alison as if she could never cry too hard or too long, as if she thought Alison deserved to be held forever.

  It surprised Alison how easily she’d taken to lovemaking with Zoe, how hungrily she craved it, how not that different yet somehow better it was than the occasional sex she’d had with men. But Zoe wanted one yes in bed that Alison couldn’t give her. Wouldn’
t, Zoe insisted.

  Before Zoe, Alison had never really made love. Sex had been a solo trip for her, her lovers there to send her off at the beginning and greet her at the end. The men she’d slept with hadn’t cared how she got her orgasms, or even if she had them. But Zoe wanted to be with Alison, inside Alison, all over Alison during every breath, moan, and shudder along the way.

  Alison promised Zoe she’d work on her “intimacy issues.” She started by trying to keep her eyes open when they made love. When Zoe wanted to snuggle afterward, Alison focused on how good it felt to be held instead of how bad it felt to be trapped. She taught herself to say no to her fear when it wrapped its tentacles around her and pulled tight, when her heart creaked open and threatened to slam shut. When she started obsessing about Zoe dying or leaving or lying to her.

  “I’m scared,” Alison learned to say, instead of disappearing or starting a fight. Sometimes she didn’t even have to speak. Zoe could read the signs from across a room. She’d go to Alison and rub her neck and talk her back from the edge.

  “You’re safe with me. I love you,” Zoe said over and over, while Alison took deep breaths, trying to believe her.

  Zoe’s love felt like a prize Alison had won without knowing exactly how or why. Alison wanted to deserve it. She wanted to give Zoe everything she had in her to give. No. She wanted to give Zoe more.

  “Sisters!” Mariandaughter stood in the center of the circle. “It’s eight months till the presidential election. Let’s discuss feminist strategy. Which campaign should we support? Or do we ignore the whole electoral process and vote with our feet?”

  “The Black Student Union is supporting Brother Jesse Jackson,” Nia said.

  “La Raza Unida tambíen,” said Carmen.

  “Right on,” Mariandaughter said.