Free Because They Wanted To: Stories by Mary Gaitskill Page A

part of her seemed secretly to sympathize with the sickness. It was like she thought everybody had it, and the best you could do was to cover it up, and sometimes it would just come boiling out anyway. Then you had to point at it and condemn it, even though you knew you had it too.
    Once, Elise heard her talking to a client about the woman’s step-daughter, who was crazy even though she was on Prozac. Elise had stopped by the salon to borrow some money, and she had to wait because Sandy was tattooing the client’s lips. The client’s lips were swollen and bleeding from the needle, but she wanted to talk anyway.
    “I just feel so bad and so helpless. It turns out she’s been cutting herself like that for at least a year. All over her arms and her stomach, with a razor.”
    “You know,” Sandy had said, “there’s a whole article on it in Focus this month. It’s just fascinating. It says they do it to distract themselves from the terrible pain they feel inside.”
    Penny didn’t want to take the bottle. Elise pushed the nipple against her lips again and again, but she kept turning her head and crying.“Come on,” Elise whispered, low and angry. “Shut up, come on.” It wasn’t fair, she thought. It was ten-thirty. She didn’t know what to do.
    She thought of her father yelling at Rick. “You vain, conceited little prick!” he screamed. “I’d like to see you out in the trenches with the artillery coming in! What would you do, little prick? Dye your hair?” He crouched over Rick so that he could yell at him better. “Nobody out there would give a fuck about your hair!”
    She slammed the bottle on the little bedside table. She yanked the diaper off the baby. Penny screamed angrily. Elise stopped. She put her hand on Penny’s stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    When she had finished the bottle, Penny was quiet. It was eleven o’clock. Elise walked up and down the room. If Robin came home now, Elise was going to yell at her. She went to the dresser and began opening the drawers, starting with the top ones. She saw Robin’s nylon underwear, a grubby address book, a rubber band, a button with thread still attached. Eric was looking at her from the floor; when he saw she saw him, he looked away. She found a piece of paper; it was the torn-off half of a form letter asking for money for breast cancer research, with phone numbers and a grocery list written on it in chartreuse ink. There was a ballpoint on the bedside table. She sat on the bed, turned the letter over, and wrote on the back: “It is 11:00 and I am leaving. You said you would be back at six and you are five hours late. Almost anybody else would’ve left after two hours late. I took this job for no money and I did everything I said I would do. What you’ve done is wrong. You have acted like an asshole. I’m sorry to do this, and I hope nothing bad has happened to you. But I have to leave. I am not coming back tomorrow.”
    She put it on the table. First she put it down flat, then she stood it up between the clock and the bud vase. She decided to wait just five more minutes. The noise from the street was a cool, soothing mumble. The breeze from the window was almost chilling on her lap. Andy had fallen asleep in the armchair. Eric was moving a toy around and humming softly to himself. She thought about herself in the future. She could only imagine loud music and quickly changing pictures, like an advertisement for something on TV. That was okay;it seemed like fun. She imagined herself having fun, then making money, then going back home and buying everybody presents. She imagined how grateful they’d be.
    It was eleven-thirty when she left. Penny was deep in her thoughts. Andy was asleep. Eric was still playing and humming to himself. She crouched beside him to say goodbye. He looked at her with somber eyes. He looked like he’d just recognized her. “Bye,” he said. She touched his arm; he looked down.
    The hall was hot and stuffy. It felt