Heart Beat Here

Chapter 8

TWENTY-THREE

It's not the same apartment, but it's pretty close. The first one was in Harlem. Without her project manager job, they can't afford that one. This one's in the Bronx. It takes Lisa even longer to get to classes. It's even further from Lisa's parents. So, the good with the bad.



There's more good.



"I want to take you out tonight," she says, tossing her shoulder bag on the bed.

"Really?" Jennie knows they haven't been out on a date in at least a month. Lisa probably has no idea.

"Yes. To celebrate." She swoops in behind her, pushing her nose into Jennie's neck. Jennie can feel her smiling.

"What are we celebrating?" She asks, nudging Lisa away from her ticklish neck.

"A 4.0."

"Really?" She may not like law school, but Lisa sure does love good grades and Jennie's happy to celebrate. Anything to make Lisa believe that she's happy. Anything to push those positive associations.

"Yep. To Veselka! Get anything you want tonight, babe. Varenyky, bigos, goulash. One of everything!" At the mention of the restaurant, Jennie erupts into a fit of giggles against Lisa's chest.

"Living large at the Ukrainian diner tonight?" She asks, before collapsing into giggles once again.

One of everything is too much, so she gets one of everything that she knows she likes, just to tease Lisa. With the vodka coursing through them, neither seems to care about the bill or about their responsibilities come morning.



"How about we go out tonight?" It's after another one of their dry spells. Jennie can't remember the last time they went out. Or, really, the last time she spent more than five minutes in a room with Lisa without seeing her study or hearing her talk about law school.

"Can't. Too much studying."

She's still optimistic, still working on those positive associations, so she says tries another angle. "How about when you're done, we do that thing you like?"

It takes a minute for Lisa to react. Jennie can see each moment of her process: understand Jennie's request, realize the deeper meaning of Jennie's request, figure out exactly what she wants. But once she's settled on it, Lisa's books slide off her lap and crash to the floor. "The one with the lace and the…my face in your...you know?"

She's laughing for three reasons. First, Lisa's complete ignorance of the books crashing to the floor. These books have been her most prized possessions since the school year started. Second, Lisa's face. It's frozen in shock, or awe, or anticipation, or maybe all three. And third, what Lisa's decided is 'that thing she likes.' For as long as they've been together, in this life and the last, Lisa can never find the right words talk about sex and it alternately makes Jennie crazy and makes her fall more and more in love with her.

"It's a vagina, Lisa. And I was actually thinking about the one with me on top of you?"

If the books could fall to the floor again, they would. Lisa's squirming in her seat and staring at the low cut of Jennie's shirt and if she waited a second longer, Jennie swears she would see drool drop from her lip. "I don't think I'm going to be able to study until we figure out which one I like more."



"Can you hold me?" It's been happening more and more often that Lisa sleeps through her nightmares. The first few times it happened, she figured it was just the late nights studying. She'd just roll over and go back to sleep pretty easily. And she still figures that it's the late nights studying, but now she can't help but pull Lisa awake, even if only for an instant.

"Hmm," she whispers, turning into Jennie and throwing and arm around her stomach, a leg over her thigh. It's not exactly what Jennie had in mind, but it'll do. She just wants to feel her warmth and her weight.

"I love you, Lisa."

"...love...too," she mumbles back.



Lisa's about a fifty-fifty studier. Fifty percent of the time at the library, fifty percent of the time at the apartment. After a rash of armed robberies in the neighborhood, Jennie won't let her study at the library after dark, which means that by the time she gets home from her afterschool job, Lisa's usually thoroughly entrenched at the desk.

"Rough day?" Usually it's just a quick 'hello' and 'hope your day was good' before she's back to burying herself in her books and Jennie's off to kitchenette to heat up some dinner. But today her eyes are bright and her smile is one of those rare full-blown ones and she can't stop looking at Jennie.

"Yeah. Paint everywhere. The principal was not happy." Jennie's happy to ham it up. She struggles to hold back her smile. She wants to play along.

"You're amazing."

"Why? Cause I can survive being a human canvas for several kindergarten Jackson Pollocks?"

"Just cause. Because you're amazing." She thinks that maybe she should come home like this more often because Lisa has abandoned her books and her desk and is opening her arms and beckoning Jennie to sit on her lap.



"You gonna let me see that?" It's a typical night in bed. Lisa's light beams against the gloss of one of her books. Highlighter and ink from her pen splash against the pages. Jennie uses the residual light to sketch.

She looks up from her work to find Lisa's eyes on the page, then pulls it back suddenly, like it's a game. "When I'm done, maybe."

"It's me, isn't it?" She's reaching for it, a devilish twinkle in her eye. The highlighters slide from the crease of the book and get lost in the wrinkles of the sheets.

Jennie pulls her lip between her teeth to keep from smiling. "It might be."

"You keep looking at me."

"Well maybe that's just because you're beautiful."

"True."

"Ass. Maybe it's actually because you've got something on your face." She picks a spot on her face and stares, just to find out how gullible Lisa is.

Bingo. Her hands search her face, feeling out for abnormalities, as she asks "What?"

When Jennie smiles, she lets loose one of those full-bodied smiles.

Jennie tilts the sketchbook toward the light. "Have a look."

It’s quiet for a moment, just the sound of the bus passing down the street.

"Wow. You're so talented, babe. I wish I could buy all your stuff." There's not an ounce of hyperbole or dishonesty in her words and Jennie feels her lower lip quiver for the briefest of moments.

"I think you'll be able to in a few years." Positive associations.

"I don't want to think about that." Maybe this positive association attempt doesn't work.

"Well you will."

"I guess. I wish I had just the tiniest bit of talent beyond studying and memorizing things." Or maybe this positive association attempt just backfires.

"Oh you've got some talents." A little innuendo is usually successful with Lisa, and the change in her face reveals that it works like a charm.

"I do? Like what?"

She takes the book from Lisa's lap and stacks her own sketchbook on top of it on the nightstand. "Your fingers and tongue are quite talented, babe," she whispers, suddenly demure.

Lisa leans in behind her before she can turn back from the nightstand, her breath tickling Jennie's ear. "Yeah? And what else?" she whispers back, like it's a secret, like there's a million other people in the room, but her words are only meant for Jennie.

"You've got a pretty talented butt, too."

She feels Lisa's laugh, warm and deep, against her. "What talent does my butt have?"

"It wiggles and shakes pretty good," she says, turning back into Lisa to watch her laugh. "And it's excellent for gripping," she adds, reaching to demonstrate.

Lisa yelps in faux surprise. Her eyes are bright and wide and Jennie wants to remember this look for her sketch later. "We should test all of these talents out. I don't believe you."

"But you have to study and I have to finish my sketch." She wants Lisa’s idea to win out. She wants to get some validation about where she falls in Lisa's priorities.

Lisa leans down to run her lips along the column of Jennie's throat. "You know once I get something in my head I can't get it out."

Validation.



But the bad is everywhere.



"I'm at the grocery store. You need anything?" It's late and she's feeling inspired after a particularly productive night at the studio, inspired enough to fill the shelves, despite not having groceries for the past several weeks.

She can hear Lisa whispering something to herself as she talks. Probably reading. "Breakfast stuff," she finally states.

She's at the library. She can hear it in the silence in the background, in the way that Lisa whispers. And she'd be angry if it would actually help. Lisa knows she doesn't want her there after dark. But they've had too many conversations about it at this point. Jennie can't do it anymore.

"Do you want me to pick you up some cereal?" she asks as she pushes the cart down the aisle.

Lisa quickly responds, "When's the last time I ate cereal for breakfast, Jennie?"

She can't help her reaction. "A simple 'no thanks' is enough, Lisa."

When she plays the conversation over again in her head that night, she thinks she gets it. She was studying. She was in the middle of something. She was just being brusque. And Jennie was just thinking too hard, or not thinking at all. She thinks she's got to figure out which one it is so that she doesn't snap like that again.


"Can you sketch at the desk?" She leans against her nightstand to flick off the light. Her eyes droop and there's a smudge of highlighter tinting her high cheekbone.

"But I'm comfortable here." It's almost a whine. But it can't be. She knows she doesn't whine.

Her eyes are closed and her head falls forward when she replies, "I have to wake up at 5:30."

"So do I." It's a good thing her eyes are closed with the look Jennie gives her.

She goes to the desk 30 minutes later, but Jennie hates that Lisa can't just put on the sleep mask she bought her at the beginning of the year, when they figured out just how small their apartment is. She hates that they even have to have the conversation.



They've had a good week. Early nights, dinner together, bed at the same time.

And Jennie's had a good week, in particular. A padded paycheck from some extra work with her "little Jackson Pollocks," as Lisa's taken to calling them, plus an appointment with a potential buyer scheduled for the next day. She's had a good week.

"What do you want to do for dinner?" It's just the natural continuation of a good week. Early night. Dinner together. Bed at the same time.

She's whispering to herself again and Jennie knocks off the first one. Lisa's at the library. No early night.

"Mama brought some stuff up to the library," she states. It sounds like she's reading off a cue card. Jennie can picture her at her study carrel. Highlighter in hand (and maybe a little smudged on that high cheekbone), phone propped between her shoulder and chin, eyes scanning the page, pausing to listen to the phone, scanning the page again.
She already knows the answer, but she's still hoping for the rest of the good week: Dinner together, Bed at the same time. She can stay up late tonight. "So are you coming home soon?"

Scanning the page. "No." Scanning the page again.

"I don't want you walking home from the subway when it's this late, Lis."

"It's ok, I'll probably spend the night here," she replies like she hasn't heard Jennie argue with her about this a thousand times. "Lots to do."

Jennie doesn't eat dinner. Early night. Bed.



"Remember you said you wanted to see that movie? It's playing around the corner at 10:30." It's been another few weeks or so since the last time they went out. Jennie figures she'll say no. She's spent the last two nights in the library and finals are coming up soon. At least she thinks they are.

"I can't tonight." She doesn't sound like she's in the library, but Jennie can't tell this time. She's coming home from a meeting with a client. Her first regular.

"It's Friday night." She figured she'd say no, but she thought that ‘Friday night’ would maybe give her the push she needed.

"Tato asked me to check in on Alec. He's hasn't been home in a few nights."

Alec again. She can hear the sadness in Lisa's voice now, but she's already hung up.



"Do you want to go out to Brighton Beach for the evening? Mama invited us to dinner." Jennie dreads the thought immediately, but she can't let on so easily.

"I don't know," she says, and it's good that Lisa's calling her with the way her face is betraying her emotions.

"Is it about them? They like you, I promise they do." She figures Lisa must not be at the library because she doesn't sound like she's talking to Jennie in between highlighting and reading.

"I don't believe that for a second," it comes out a little harsher than she intends. She wants it to sound like a joke, but now her tone joins her face in betraying her.

"You haven't spent more than thirty minutes around them since my graduation last year."

"I can just tell."

"Well how are they supposed to get to know you and like you if you won't spend any time with them?"

"Wait. You just said he likes me." Sometimes she wishes she had a recorder on these conversations. She could swear that's what Lisa said, and if he likes her then why does he need to spend more time getting to like her?

"They do."

"He doesn't like me, Lisa." The truth comes out. For the hundredth time, she figures. Like everything else, this is nothing new. It dates back to her graduation.

"Whatever. I'm done with this argument. I'm going out there for dinner tonight."

"Fine. I guess I'll see you tonight."

"I'll probably spend the night." That's new.

"Fine, I'll see you tomorrow morning then."



Each fight seems miniscule unto itself. Added together, they knock her flat.

It's not even halfway through Lisa's second semester when she feels buried completely. She waits it out. She chugged through two years of this the first time around. She's sure it's going to get better.



"You don't understand."

The fight started on the phone. Lisa was happy to let it end on the phone, too, but Jennie told her that she needed to come home. Something about the way she said it had Lisa coming through the apartment door ninety minutes later.

"Help me. Make me understand. Because you're right, I don't understand and I'm absolutely miserable."

"That makes two of us."

"So do something about it. Stop it."

It's the same fight as usual. Each one starts a little differently. This one started with Lisa telling Jennie that her parents wanted to invite them both out to Brighton Beach for dinner, Jennie in particular. It was a ruse, she figured, like usual, to get her to like Lisa's family when they clearly hated her. She said as much. She couldn't help herself. Lisa argued back, which was not as typical. And maybe that's what set her off. Lisa argued back and she laid into her. Everything came out. It started small. The stuff with the late nights at the library. The stuff about date nights. The stuff about studying. Then it got bigger. The stuff about her parents. Then it took a turn into the fight she'd tried to repress. The stuff about whether Lisa was really happy.

And it all led to this.

Lisa, in tears, in front of her. Face red, fists clenched at her side.

"I can save them," it's just a whisper at first. "You know that, right? You know what it's like, Jennie. I took you out to Brighton Beach when we first moved here. I showed you my whole life." It ends with a crumpled face and a crack in her voice.

She doesn't just hate seeing her cry. She cannot deal with seeing her cry. As soon as the tears well in her eyes, Jennie can feel it, too. When the tears stream down her cheeks, Jennie's fall to the floor, too.

"My dad," she sucks in a few breaths in a row and pushes through the tears, breath heaving and a little out of control, "all he does is work. The time you met him at graduation, that was his first day off in as long as I can remember. My mom doesn't speak any English. She's stuck. If Alec was still in school, maybe I could do something different, try something else. But I can't because now I'm supposed to save him, too."

She can't listen to her any more. It hurts too much to see her like this, to hear her like this. "You can't be everything to everyone." She says it too quickly and knows it won't help as soon as she says it.

"They didn't come to America for me to do that to them. Twenty years ago they left their family and their friends and took a grueling trip over here. I was three years old. Mama was pregnant with Alec. Can you imagine traveling away from everything you've ever known for that three year-old and that unborn child? Traveling away from your language, your career, your home? And here, they work and work and work. And when you think they've stopped working, they're still working. It's all for us. For me and Alec. This is what I'm supposed to do with my life, Jennie. I'm supposed to repay them for all of those sacrifices, for wanting something better for us."

"I don't understand why you can't help them and still pursue something that you love?"

"I've already come this far. I'm so, so close. I've taken out the loans. I've just got two more years. And I've got straight A's so far. I'm at the top of my class. If I keep going this way, I'm guaranteed my pick of associate jobs at the top firms. Six figures easy."

"And miserable just the same." She steps toward her. She wants to reach out to wipe her tears from her cheeks, but she's never done this before. They've never done this before. Not in this life and not in the last. She holds her hands by her side and says in a whisper, "What do you think is going to happen once you've graduated? Are you suddenly going to fall in love with this stuff?"

Lisa looks past her. It feels like everything's frozen and she can't tell how long it lasts. But when she looks back up at her, Lisa's sitting on the edge of their bed, head buried in her hands, fingers pulling at tangles of her hair.

"I love you, Lisa."

"I love you too, Jennie," she muffles into her hands. "So much."

"I can't."

This moment burns quickly. Too quick. Lisa's eyes are on her. They're wide and panicked. "Can't what?

"I can't keep doing this."

It's an out-of-body experience and for the briefest of instants she wonders if somehow she's about to experience a third life. She wonder if she's played this life wrongly enough to be forced into a redo of it yet again.

"Please, don't do this to me."

"It's for both of us. We need this."

"No," Lisa's fists push her off the bed and ball at her side. "Don't tell me what I need," she says through clenched teeth. Then, a moment later, she's back on the bed, face buried in her hands, whispering, "How am I supposed to do this without you?"

"I'm gonna go stay with my friend in Jersey tonight."

"No, Jennie...please..." her voice trails off into sobs.

She kisses Lisa on the forehead and leaves. She makes it to the alley behind the apartment before she doubles over and throws up. Her friend answers phone on the second ring and drives more than an hour to pick her up from where she's still slumped over in the alley.



She calls her mom from Jersey the next day.

"I broke up with her."

"What?"

"I broke up..."

"I heard. I just can't believe it, Jennie."

"Really, you can't believe it mom? I told you, last year. That awful fight we had on her graduation day? Her awful, awful parents. I hate them so much. What they've done to her. What she lets them do to her."

"Is it definitely over?"

"I think so."

"Oh Jennie."

"I'm miserable, mom. I hate coming back to our apartment, I dread talking to her. All I want to do is lock myself in the studio and never come out."

"Come home, honey. For the weekend, at least. I have off."

"Ok."



Being home doesn't make things any better. At times, it actually feels worse, because this isn't supposed to be home. Home is supposed to be New York. Home is supposed to be Lisa.

They don't talk about it until the morning after her first night home. She doesn't sleep much, but wakes to the smell of bacon and pancakes in the late morning. Not sleeping much turned into a dead sleep somewhere in the early morning.

"She's miserable. Which then makes me miserable," she says between sips of black coffee. "And it's so much worse than last year. All she does is study and go to class. But she won't give it up. And it's like her parents are puppet-masters. They're forcing her through it and she's just letting them move her strings."

Her mom takes a moment to consider everything. "What does she want?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well if she doesn't want to be in law school, what does she want?"

"She really seemed to love working for the Senator. She had that internship the summer that we started dating, and she worked a little bit for him this past summer. She seems to love that work."

"You think she wants to do that?" The questions drive her crazy. She just wants her mom to tell her that everything's going to be ok.

"I think she wants to please her parents. When we broke up, she talked about how much they sacrificed and still sacrifice to give her opportunities."

"I can understand her perspective. It's not something that you or I have ever had to deal with, but that's the story for many children of immigrants, you know."

"But how are they sacrificing to give her opportunities if she's locked into something she hates? I wouldn't call that an opportunity at all."

"She wants to please her parents."

"Yeah. And she's miserable doing it. I can't stand to be miserable alongside her."

Her mom actually smiles and it drives her a little bit more crazy. "So like your father. Always wanting to fix everything. Sometimes, baby, there are things we can't fix."

She hasn't cried since the alley, since that night, but it comes back with more force now. "What am I supposed to do?" she asks between gasping breaths and sobs. "I've invested so much into this relationship. Years." She almost lets it slip, but she doesn't say exactly how many years. Twenty-one to twenty-four the first time around, and seventeen to twenty-three this time. Nine years in all.

"I know baby." Her mom circles around the kitchen island, pulling her head against her chest and running her fingers against her scalp. "But you can't fix this. If you want her, maybe she's got to fix it herself."

"She won't."

"She fights for you more than you know."

It's the second time her mom's said something about Lisa that makes her think back to that birthday, where she woke up to her mom and Lisa deeply involved in conversation. It makes her wonder how she knows Lisa so well. Is it because she knows people like Lisa? Is it because of the similarities between her relationship with Lisa and her mom's relationship with her dad? Or maybe it's because she's in on this second-time-around thing too? Maybe it's nothing at all. Maybe it's just something she's saying to make Jennie feel better.

"Well I can't fight for her anymore."

"Don't. Take a break. If it's meant to be, she'll fix things herself and find a way back."



Maybe this is the way it was supposed to be all along. Maybe she really did fuck things up. The consequences have damned her.

She traces everything back to the beginning. Maybe it was that first moment when she tempted fate: joining the mock trial team. Sixteen year-old Jennie never would have joined mock trial. Maybe it was approaching Lisa at the tournament, exchanging email addresses and then emails. Maybe it was spending more time with her mom, or agreeing to meet Lisa's parents at graduation, or not taking that project manager job.

Or maybe it was as simple as how she packaged that lava lamp on move-in day, surrounded by newspapers and pillows, as though saving a $15 lava lamp from its fated end would somehow save her from her fated end.

Still, she's tempted fate and it seems like fate's always worked out in its expected way.

But there's this.

She and Lisa are supposed to be together at twenty-three. It isn't exactly a happy "together," but she'd rather that than alone, she thinks. Except she did this. She just broke up with Lisa.

Maybe this will be when she goes back to her real life. She dreams of reality. Twenty-four. The first twenty-four. Their double bed full of pillows and law books pushed up against the bedroom wall. Lisa rolling over, mouth slightly ajar, as Jennie pushes her closer to her side of the bed. Lisa frowning in her sleep.

She wants that back because this life has felt so much worse. Forced to relive her father's death. Forced to watch her mother grieve. Forced to fight a relentless and insurmountable fight for happiness with the woman she loves.

Forced to know exactly what's coming and helpless to change any of it.