idea but I kept tugging at the cushion. Tug. Tug.
I didn’t even see her get up. The crook of her arm caught my neck and jerked me backward. I slammed into the couch—the wind knocked out of me. Before I could get my balance she shoved my hip down with her knee. I grabbed at the air stupidly. She pinned my shoulders down, intently watching what the panic was doing to my face. Then she suddenly let go and walked away. I lay there shaking uncontrollably. She locked the bathroom door with a click.
PHILLIP CALLED FIRST THING IN the morning.
“Kirsten and I were wondering if you’d had you a chance to think it over.”
“Can I ask one question?” I said, pressing a bruise on the back of my upper calf.
“Anything,” said Phillip.
“Is she gorgeous?”
“Will that impact your decision?”
“No.”
“Stunning.”
“What color hair?”
“Blond.”
I spit into a hanky. My globus had swollen in the night—I couldn’t swallow at all anymore.
“No, I haven’t decided.”
For the next three hours I lay in bed, my head where my feet should be. He was in love with a sixteen-year-old. I had spent years training myself to be my own servant so that when a situation involving extreme wretchedness arose, I would be taken care of. But the house didn’t function as it once had; Clee had undone years of careful maintenance. All the dishes were out and the general disarray was beyond carpooling—there was nothing between me and filthy animal living. So I peed in cups and knocked over one of the cups and didn’t clean it up. I chewed bread into a puree, moistening it with sips of water until I could slurp it down as a horse would. Only liquids could slip past the globus, and only with a swallowing scenario. The Black Stallion for bready water. For plain water I was Heidi, dipping a metal ladle into a well. It’s from the end, when she’s living in the Alps. For orange juice I was Sarge from the Beetle Bailey comic, where Sarge and Beetle Bailey go to Florida and drink all-you-can-drink orange juice. Glug, glug, glug. It worked because it wasn’t me, it was the character swallowing, offhandedly—just a brief moment in a larger story. There’s a scenario for every beverage except beer and wine because I was too young for alcohol when I invented this technique. I let my mouth hang open so the spit could roll out easily. Not just a sixteen-year-old, a stunning blond sixteen-year-old. She was driving him crazy. Someone came in the back door. Rick. The TV blasted on. Not Rick.
She was home from Ralphs: it was later than I thought. I pulled myself upright and listened to her flipping channels arrhythmically. My back was sore where she threw me down, but this was almost a welcome distraction from the globus. My neck felt like an object unrelated to me, a businessman’s misplaced briefcase. When I tapped my throat it made a bony sound, and then suddenly the muscle began to tighten, and tighten, like a pulled knot—I panicked, shaking my hands in the air—no, no, no—
And then it locked.
I’d read about this online but it had never happened to me. The sternothyroid muscle becomes so rigid that it seizes up. Sometimes permanently.
“Test,” I whispered, to see if I could still talk. “Test, test.” Very carefully, without moving my neck, I reached for the glass bottle on my bedside table. Using the Heidi scenario I drank all the red. Nothing happened. I gingerly carried my neck to the phone and called Dr. Broyard, but he was in Amsterdam; the message invited me to call 911 or leave my name and number for Dr. Ruth-Anne Tibbets. I remembered the two stacks of business cards in their Lucite holders—this was the other doctor. The one in charge of watering the fern in the waiting room. I hung up, then called back and left my name and number. The message felt too short for a therapist.
“I’m forty-three,” I added, still whispering. “Regular height. Brown hair that is now gray. No children. Thanks, please
I didn’t even see her get up. The crook of her arm caught my neck and jerked me backward. I slammed into the couch—the wind knocked out of me. Before I could get my balance she shoved my hip down with her knee. I grabbed at the air stupidly. She pinned my shoulders down, intently watching what the panic was doing to my face. Then she suddenly let go and walked away. I lay there shaking uncontrollably. She locked the bathroom door with a click.
PHILLIP CALLED FIRST THING IN the morning.
“Kirsten and I were wondering if you’d had you a chance to think it over.”
“Can I ask one question?” I said, pressing a bruise on the back of my upper calf.
“Anything,” said Phillip.
“Is she gorgeous?”
“Will that impact your decision?”
“No.”
“Stunning.”
“What color hair?”
“Blond.”
I spit into a hanky. My globus had swollen in the night—I couldn’t swallow at all anymore.
“No, I haven’t decided.”
For the next three hours I lay in bed, my head where my feet should be. He was in love with a sixteen-year-old. I had spent years training myself to be my own servant so that when a situation involving extreme wretchedness arose, I would be taken care of. But the house didn’t function as it once had; Clee had undone years of careful maintenance. All the dishes were out and the general disarray was beyond carpooling—there was nothing between me and filthy animal living. So I peed in cups and knocked over one of the cups and didn’t clean it up. I chewed bread into a puree, moistening it with sips of water until I could slurp it down as a horse would. Only liquids could slip past the globus, and only with a swallowing scenario. The Black Stallion for bready water. For plain water I was Heidi, dipping a metal ladle into a well. It’s from the end, when she’s living in the Alps. For orange juice I was Sarge from the Beetle Bailey comic, where Sarge and Beetle Bailey go to Florida and drink all-you-can-drink orange juice. Glug, glug, glug. It worked because it wasn’t me, it was the character swallowing, offhandedly—just a brief moment in a larger story. There’s a scenario for every beverage except beer and wine because I was too young for alcohol when I invented this technique. I let my mouth hang open so the spit could roll out easily. Not just a sixteen-year-old, a stunning blond sixteen-year-old. She was driving him crazy. Someone came in the back door. Rick. The TV blasted on. Not Rick.
She was home from Ralphs: it was later than I thought. I pulled myself upright and listened to her flipping channels arrhythmically. My back was sore where she threw me down, but this was almost a welcome distraction from the globus. My neck felt like an object unrelated to me, a businessman’s misplaced briefcase. When I tapped my throat it made a bony sound, and then suddenly the muscle began to tighten, and tighten, like a pulled knot—I panicked, shaking my hands in the air—no, no, no—
And then it locked.
I’d read about this online but it had never happened to me. The sternothyroid muscle becomes so rigid that it seizes up. Sometimes permanently.
“Test,” I whispered, to see if I could still talk. “Test, test.” Very carefully, without moving my neck, I reached for the glass bottle on my bedside table. Using the Heidi scenario I drank all the red. Nothing happened. I gingerly carried my neck to the phone and called Dr. Broyard, but he was in Amsterdam; the message invited me to call 911 or leave my name and number for Dr. Ruth-Anne Tibbets. I remembered the two stacks of business cards in their Lucite holders—this was the other doctor. The one in charge of watering the fern in the waiting room. I hung up, then called back and left my name and number. The message felt too short for a therapist.
“I’m forty-three,” I added, still whispering. “Regular height. Brown hair that is now gray. No children. Thanks, please
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