Louisa Meets Bear by Lisa Gornick

would flip through the album, she would always pause to stare at that picture of my mother with her appearance of innocence and boldness all at once. “What a tease,” I once said, afraid that if I didn’t say it, Corrine would.
    *   *   *
    Later that week, I take you to visit Corrine. On the bus out to the beach, I try to prepare you. I tell you that Corrine lives in varying intensities of chaos, that she thinks of herself as a painter, sees the world as a tableau in Matisse primary colors, but that aside from the butterflies she painted on Lily’s bedroom walls, she rarely actually finishes anything, her apartment littered with canvases in different stages of completion.
    Sitting on pillows in Corrine’s living room, you surprise me by your obvious disapproval, your pointed silence. Corrine grows nervous, talking more and more. She offers us cocaine. You refuse and then walk out of the room while I partake. Corrine whispers to me, “That Bear of yours, he sure is overbearing.” I giggle nervously.
    Afterward, we fight. “The chick lives like a slob,” you say. “I feel sorry for the kid.”
    â€œShe’s a wonderful mother.” My voice sounds tight and closed even to my own ears. “Lily is happy and healthy and open with everyone. Her teacher says she’s one of the most empathic children she’s ever known.”
    â€œReports who? Corrine?”
    That night, you sleep turned away from me. In the morning, I have this idea of homemade English muffins. Not until the ingredients are mixed do I realize that they take an hour to rise. Anxiety I cannot explain creeps in.
    The muffins are still rising when you come into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around your middle. Your hair sticks up and you haven’t brushed your teeth. You reach for a box of cereal and head to the refrigerator for milk. “I’m making English muffins,” I announce.
    You pull your hand back from the refrigerator door in an exaggerated gesture and sit down at the table. I pour you a cup of coffee the way you like it, black and sweet, and give you the newspaper. I hull strawberries and scrape the seeds from a cantaloupe.
    Ten minutes pass before you shoot me a look.
    â€œA few more minutes,” I say. “Then I can put them in the oven.”
    You roll the paper into a tube and slam the table. Coffee sloshes onto the floor. “Jesus Christ, can’t I just have a bowl of cereal? Or do I have to stand on ceremony for this production of yours?”
    I start to cry. You get a sponge and wipe up the floor. You lean against the counter with your arms folded across your chest and your chin jutted forward. You seem to be inspecting me: skinny arms and legs poking out of a nightshirt. You shake your head back and forth and glare. “Don’t you know how to fight?” you say.
    In the fall, we move back onto campus. We both take singles, though mostly we sleep in your room, where you have installed the double bed. I learn to fight back. Sometimes after an argument, you poke me in the ribs and grin. “Good job,” you say. “A real contender.”
    *   *   *
    When I tell you about Andrew, that I met him on an expedition to New York to visit Juanita, east for her book tour and by then my father’s live-in lover, that I had not wanted a man to get up from his café chair to come talk with me, you look at me with disdain. “You fool,” you say. “You arrogant little fool. Do you think you’re so astounding that men can’t control themselves with you? You invite it. You fucking invite it.”
    Once you say it, I know you are right: there had been something open, available, in the way I held my head while I waited for Juanita, in the way I carefully folded my magazine, crossed my legs, sipped my cappuccino, lit cigarettes. I had watched myself as though I were blown up on a movie screen, twenty times