Emily hates me.
Why else would she not have answered my last three emails? Surely she is not traveling. Surely her spam filter is not blockading me. It never did before. What, then? Emily could be dead. That would be shocking. But nothing else comes to mind except Emily being dead (a possibility that makes me sad but also guilty for having suspected her of hating me when she cannot reply to emails because she is dead) or Emily despising me, which is more probable given her age.
But why would she despise me now, when we laughed over lunch last month? We never fought. I wrack my brain. What did I say that day without realizing how it outraged Emily? When she talked about shopping for pup tents, did I seem not to care?
Tears spattering my keyboard, I begin another email. Please forgive me.
This is what I always do. I beg.
Not in the sense of seeking alms from passersby or wheedling men to buy me things. I beg to be forgiven. Not just that. I excel at the kind of begging where I beg to be forgiven for things I have not done wrong. Not even that. This is the kind of begging where I have not only not done the wrong thing for which I seek forgiveness (sobbing, pleading, on my knees) but in fact have done nearly nothing wrong in my whole life. No crimes. No infidelity. No major lies. This is not because I am virtuous but because I do almost nothing anyway. It is part math equation, part parable: The less you do, the less you do wrong.
My husband says You are so good but even he knows I am good only by accident. Default. I say too little for my words to hurt. When it is not on purpose, kindness does not count. Paralysis can make anyone seem a saint.
I beg potential editors to consider me. I beg clerks to ring up my purchases. Waiting for buses, I hop up and down at the stop when they round the corner, begging their drivers to let me board and let me place cash in the slot. I do not much like people, yet ten thousand times I have hunched before what I thought was their hatred or rage, palms pressed together as if praying, which I guess I was.
I know the words. I know the tones. I know the poses, the slack physiognomy of self-abasement. Sloping shoulders, wobbly jaw. I know. My easy grace at groveling evokes that of champion athletes who are born to pole-vault, born to bat.
We are all born to beg. We beg first for the breast. Then we learn to ask God for favors should we die before we wake. And there, for most, it ends. Begging becomes a joke, a standard ploy in awful plays. I beg of you. Beg for your life. Prove human sovereignty by taunting dogs: Sit up and beg. This is how we know we are civilized. The brave and free need never plead.
To beg is to declare I am your infant, underling, animal, slave. To beg is to bare belly, back and throat while proffering a dagger. To beg is to give yourself away.
As soon as I was old enough to realize that Dad hoarded Milk Duds in his den, I begged for them. Ponytail eye-tuggingly tight the way my mother styled it, I stood pigeon-toed in orthopedic shoes and plaid kilt-skirts saying Can I have candy Daddy can I can I. At that age I also begged for other things: I begged him to stop screaming at me, to stop saying Goddamn sonofabitch bastard meaning me, to stop calling me slob. I begged him to forgive me for leaving a vinyl record in the sun. I begged him to forgive me for being clumsy and rude and irresponsible and all those things he said I was. Screaming myself, I begged him on my hands and knees to give me one more chance and smile and sing.
He frowned, folded his arms over his chest and turned his back. And who could blame him for thinking this was a form of discipline?
I thought I had no choice. That without absolution I would die. Which is what makes those who beg beg: a desperation that reduces us to this. The free and brave are different. The free and brave can come and go. They do not know. Those who don't think they're up against the wall can walk away.
We beg first for the breast, which was never given to me. Mom always said her doctor recommended bottled formula, that it was de rigueur that year like cat glasses and strapless gowns. That everyone, that year, obediently drained themselves with pumps then poured the gleanings down the drain. Mom said they all used bottled formula that year because we believed it was better than the other kind. And who could blame her for thinking this was a form of medicine?
Surely in some animal sense I knew I was being denied. Deprived. Surely my mouth and fingers knew the difference between skin and glass. Surely I screamed. Pressing that rubber nipple to my lips, what did she think? Is this how, in that sunny bedroom with Jack-and-Jill stencils on its lino floor, I begged and begged without realizing why I could not stop, and begged so constantly that I came to believe I must? Did I believe, before I could talk, This is who you are and how it is: Beg, and be grateful for fascimiles?
Could that be it? Surely not-suckling should not matter all that much. I any case, I think I learned to beg too well. Then no one ever tried to talk me out of it.
I watched Mom begging Grandma on the phone.
"Ma, listen to me. Don't hang up."
It was a mantra.
"Maaa."
Grandma hung up. Mom redialed.
"Ma."
She knew those tones and poses too. I studied her without having to try. This was who we were and how it was. Some girls smile at everyone. Some sulk. I became the sort who pleads for permission to exist.
Sometimes I made my best friend mad. Never on purpose. I would not risk that. But now and then she caught me chatting with someone she disliked or refusing to dive in the shallow end. In first grade, she hissed Do what I want or I will never play with you again. In fifth, she flicked her hair and glared. Then when my face began to twitch she chimed to everyone nearby, Look at her cry. Her fury felt like being sick with something that drains the blood from your head and will kill you if it's not fixed but you cannot fix it yourself because it's all your fault.
In high school, all she had to do was raise her eyebrows and I knew. I slouched home sobbing. Mom pounded the table with her fists. What now? Wish I could kill that bitch. Out came the shopping bag she kept for days like this. It was stocked with gifts. Glass birds. Scented candles. Frilly socks. Shaking, I picked a gift, wrapped it in pastel tissue from another bag, sometimes -- depending on how angry Tessa was -- affixing stickers in the shapes of stars or hearts. Mom revved the car. I could have walked those four blocks to Tessa's house as I did on happy days, but when Tessa was mad Mom drove, to get there faster, she said as I held the present and stared slackjawed through the windshield at the passing lawns. Parking at the curb, Mom growled Go.
Tessa never came to the door. She always sent her sister, who smirked before skulking back into the house, shouting It's her. From the porch, I peered at the empty foyer with its Colonial wallpaper and plastic plants. I pictured Tessa counting to one hundred before stepping into view, hands on hips.
"I'm sorry," I sobbed.
Silence.
"I'm sorry."
Tessa watched moths orbiting the porchlight. I could feel the cold between us, and Mom watching from the car.
"Totally," I said.
Tessa snorted.
"So?"
Hand on the door, she turned to go. I half-crouched, like someone having a seizure.
"Tessa, please."
"Please what?"
"Forgive me."
Her eyes danced.
"Why?"
"Please."
I raised the gift. She took it while showing her teeth, like all the other times. My ears began to ache.
"Are you still mad?"
"Kind of. Bye-bye."
Driving home, Mom muttered Bitch. Sadist. Slut.
The next day, kids at school always sang Tessa says last night you brought your mom!
