Harry and Wanda

Harry and Wanda

I sit cross-legged on a tatami mat, sip unsweetened green tea from my mud-colored mug, and stare at the working gears in my beautifully transparent clock. This clock was given to me by Wanda after our break-up. I didn’t give her anything, because well, you don’t usually give presents when you tell someone you don’t want to be together anymore, but maybe you could be friends. 

Wanda is too much. Everything is too much. The incessant rumbling of the city. The ubiquitous presence of the internet. I want time to hold a stone, feel the weight, rub my thumb along the cold smooth surface, ponder the ancientness of the earth. I want to become a monk. They sit zazen. They know how to be still. The photos of Buddhist monasteries calm me. The rectangular shapes, the worn sandals all in a row. I love the lineup of identical dinner bowls.  

This is what Wanda loves. Me. Glitter. Petunias. Kitty-cat hairbands. Instagram. Making a new friend at the laundromat, the bus stop, a cafe. 

Wanda and I first met in the elevator of our building. She’d been trying to balance a wet umbrella, a kitten, a plate of cookies, and a stack of mail. What could I do? I offered to carry the cookies to her door, but she handed me Pinkie the kitten.   

It turned out I had the apartment just above hers. During the two years of our relationship, we kept our own places; mine on the third floor, hers on the second. She presented me with a key to her apartment after our first week. Maybe she wondered, though she never asked, why I never returned the gesture. She would knock on my door with a musical beat. When I needed my space, I’d open slightly, kiss the top of her head, and say ‘not a good time’, but she’d breeze past me, usually with cupcakes or scones.

After we broke up, I stole stones from Central Park and lined them up along my window, barring entry from our shared fire-escape. 

*  

Harry, you still up?  Wanda texts.     

Why wouldn’t I be up? It’s only ten.  

Here.    I punch the letters extra hard, but she can’t see that.  

Nothing for five minutes. She’s trying nonchalance. Probably twirling hair tightly around her index finger because she thinks that’ll make it curly.  

Why?     I ask. I can’t help it. 

Pinkie is missing.       

Again.    

There she is outside my window on the fire escape. Not Pinkie. Wanda. I roll my eyes and groan. Wanda’s arms are spread in an ‘I’m sorry but I had to ask you, and you know you love Pinkie, and I know you will help me kind of way’ that I can’t help myself, but I think is adorable.  

I open the window. “Last seen where,” I state rather than ask. We know where Pinkie is likely to be. I am trying to be calm and no nonsense and give a ‘no I am not coming back to you’ vibe.   

         “I hate bothering him,” she says.  

“And I don’t?” She’s talking about Blake in the next apartment up, who I have the ‘right’ to bother because I fix his computer issues on a regular basis. I’m Information Technology for work, but I help him for free. I don’t want to. But I did it once, and now I feel obligated.  

I open the window and climb over my barrier of stones. Wanda forms a circle with her arms, tilts her head and pirouettes as if she’s a dancer, which she’s not. I giggle. I’m hopeless.   

Recovering, I give her my blackest look, tramp up the fire escape, and knock on Blake’s window. He waves from his tiny kitchen, Pinkie on his lap, probably smelling faintly of fish dinner.   

Wanda is waiting below for me to scoop Pinkie up, carry her down the steps, and hand her over like a baby, so I do. She thanks me profusely, dipping up and down like a grateful yoyo, then returns obediently to her own place. I climb over my stones, knocking one onto the floor.   

The next morning I’m not surprised to find a foil-covered plate outside my front door. Chocolate chip cookies with macadamia nuts. This is a thanks for getting Pinkie, but also she knows I can’t resist her baking.    

I have three weeks of vacation accumulated and I’ve researched how to visit a monastery. As I nibble cookies, I sign up for one in Nepal and contemplate not coming back.   

* 

I’m going away.      I must let her know, but I’m trying to avoid in-person conversation.   

Five seconds later.     Vaca?  Can I use yr bathtb while u r gone?    Many emojis.  

Friend staying here. Wd be weird.      No one will be here, but…  

Going somewhere fun or visit yr mom?  

Overseas.  

Coming up.  

No. I’m busy.  

She’s on the fire escape, smiling with her eyes like she can come in whenever she wants and climbs over my Central Park stones.  

“Wanda. I have to pack.” She eyes my passport, lying nakedly on the table.  

“Europe?” Her upper body does a jazzy side to side, as if she’s responding to invisible music.  

“Nepal. Be a monk for a while.”  

“Nepal is so far.” The corners of her mouth droop. I try not to feel her emotional needs–or my own.

“I need mountains, Wanda. I need quiet.”   

“Can I come with you?” Wanda puts a finger to her quivering lips. “I can be quiet.”   

My hands tremble as I fold a t-shirt. I shake my head. “No.” 

“Why?” She asks the relevant question. 

“You climbed over my stones.”

“Those beautiful window stones?”

“You climbed over my stones, Wanda.” I look directly at her face. Her expression is open, seeking to understand, her body still, for once. Maybe I owe her a better explanation. “I love you, but you always climb over my stones.”

Something changes inside her eyes. Something changes inside my body. I feel a kind of peace.