dummy

she had seen it before, his ventriloquists dummy, but it had never talked to her before that night. they had just had their first real argument--tense, stilted, bitter. it was right before they moved in together, before he and his dummy moved into her one bedroom apartment, and they were arguing about what to do with his couch. it obviously wouldnt fit, and she already had a fine one and it would be infinitely more trouble to switch them, she argued. they were eating take out sushi at her cluttered table and she was beginning to feel uncomfortable, as if she had just lit a cigarette at the beach and then realized one more drag would make her puke. she stood up and went to the kitchen to drain the last of the wine and when she got back she saw it, that strange wooden man, mocking her anger and making it worse. it was in jim's lap, grotesque and lecherous looking, and through his closed lips jim made it say,
when amy gets mad she gets this little vein popping up out of her forehead. it scares jim.
and though it was an almost obscene thing to have just seen, she started laughing and hit him on the shoulder. it should scare you, she said, and he sold his couch on craigs list the next day.
after jim and the dummy, who had a name which she refused to utter, moved in, there was a time when their lives were in sync with each others and she felt healthy and strong. she was in a relationship, a real relationship with a man who had a job and friends and who sometimes brought out a dummy at parties and made people laugh. this was the most functional twosome she had ever been a part of. they hadn't fought since the couch episode, and the dummy lay slack jawed in the corner of their closet.
the months went on, she learned that he puts the mug in the sink without taking the tea bag out first, that he never learned how to refill a roll of toilet paper, that he squeezed his toothpaste from the middle, that he hated the fact that she left her hair brush on the coffee table, and that the sight of her eating peanut butter with a spoon made him nauseous. these nuances were carbon monoxide in the apartment, slowly and painlessly putting their relationship to sleep not with a bang, but with a whimper. they still made love and they still laughed and they still had moments of pure certaintly, of absolute conviction that this was where they both should be at this point in their lives. with each other.
one day amy came home from work and jim was sitting on the couch with the dummy in his lap. he made it say
jim wants to know why you refuse to recycle.
she looked at her boyfriend, his tall swimmers body, with his hand up the ass of a doll, and said, amy wants to know why youre a lunatic, and walked to the bedroom and shut the door. when she walked back the dummy was in a heap on the floor. she said, jim you can never bring a serious concern up by using your fucking dummy again. that is the definition of passive aggressive, and besides its too creepy for me to even think about.
he looked at her and said, it wasnt a serious concern. i was kidding. its just that i always see wine bottles and water bottles in the trash. and i was just wondering, since we recycle, why you do that.
ok, amy said, ill try to be more careful. can you try to not talk through that thing to me? ever?
he laughed and said oh come on, its a joke. and kept watching the simpsons.
she was beginning to fear the dummy. she would see it in the corner and avoid its stare, like it knew some truth about her that jim was on the brink of discovering, some ambiguous fact that she couldnt deny. like, that she only really truly cared about herself, or that she thought she was just better than jim. she no longer worried about the little things, the things she wasnt even aware of, like the vein or the recycling, but what if he came out with the whole truth, the ugly truth, her?
she was no longer completely happy with jim. she had gotten to the point, the point she has arrived at in every relationship in her past, where she was staying in it just to prove to herself that she could. that she could make it work, despite the dummy, despite the tea bags. this was the point that she had to start trying, working at the relationship, and this was the snag in the thread that would eventually cause them to unravel. she knew this because it was how it had always worked, with every man she had ever gotten serious with.
the next time she saw the dummy speak was at a cocktail party they were having. there were four other couples there, and they were sitting around towards the end of the night, warm cheeks and fizzy talk. someone told him to make the dummy talk and, despite the clawing NO in her stomach, she smiled and laughed and said oh yes do it! he brought the dummy out and sat him on his lap, laying his limp gummy legs to the side, and made him say
amy doesnt like when jim makes me talk. shes afraid of what ill say.
her heart plunged and the skin on her face was set on fire. she looked around but no one was looking at her, they were only laughing at jim, and he was going on, talking talking talking maybe about her, maybe not. she stood up and went to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet.
she could have said, this is not working. she could have said, the dummy thing bothers me so much and thats only a sign that we arent right for each other. not now. not like this. i need my space back, i need you and your dummy to move.
but instead she dove into it, into the relationship, and refused to admit that there were any problems. they had been living together for months and they had still not had a real fight; she took that as a good sign. she resigned herself to forever being a little weirded out and tried to just get over it.
the months passed and the dummy came out more frequently. every time there was a problem it would be there, sitting on his lap as soon as she opened the door. once it was because she flirted with his brother, and jim didnt like that. once it was because they hadnt had sex in so long, and jim didnt like that either. and each time she saw it she would quell the nausea in her stomach by saying, this is the one problem. get over it get over it get over it. because otherwise, she was happy.
one night she had a dream that the dummy could talk on its own, and that it was sitting on the countertop in the kitchen one morning. it said, good morning amy. thanks for taking care of me.
she woke up covered in sweat and went to the closet. there it was, with a wooden body and a head full of the truth. she picked it up, trying not to look at it, and carried it the three flights down to the street. she walked, barefoot in her pajamas, three blocks away, reared it back and slammed it against the concrete over and over, and then discarded it into the trashcan.
when she made her way back into the apartment jim was standing in the kitchen. he said,
why did you do that.
she said, because i could not take it for one more minute. it was ruining my life.
he said, jim wishes you had spoken to him about this before.

lost contact

youre twelve years old and youre in california with your dad and your brother. your brother moved there a year ago, after he graduated from UGA with an english degree and decided to hitchhike across the country. a van full of people pulled over in texas and he got in and now he lives with them in a one story ranch style house in monterey with posters of the ramones and empty ashtrays all around the house. when you and your dad went to visit there was a closed door beside the bathroom and you were desparate to see what was behind it, and you asked your brother, seth, and he said "dont go in there. its bens room." you imagined all four of his roommates huddled behind the door like you were a robber, like you were coming to steal something from them. or like they themselves had stolen something, and you and your dad were the cops coming to set things right. you only stayed in the house for five minutes but you will spend the rest of your life trying to recapture it- the smell of it, like old white t-shirts and salsa and cigarettes and other things you had yet to discover. the way it looked, still and silent and unshakable, like it was sleeping off a hard night.
after monterey the three of you go to san francisco, where your father has rented one hotel room in a place called "the seal rock inn" next to a huge, sweeping, shadowy, towering park. the room is brown and simple, there is a bed and a tv and a musty couch and a table with a telephone on it. all you want to do is call your mom but you figure more than once a day would be a sign that something was wrong, that the three of you arent a family on your own, that the only family you really have is the woman who raised you, the woman back in georgia who can forsee that this trip will tell you things, will explain things to you that had always seemed vaguely false, that had always been just one finger length away from your grasp.
the night before your brother had gone out in the city, leaving you to your fathers ugly snoring and the dull numbing face of the television. when he came back you lay on top of the covers next to your sleeping father and pretended to be asleep, like you used to at your grandmothers house when you and seth shared a bedroom. you still arent sure what would be so bad about saying hi, im still awake, but the thought was so embarassing and terrifying that you felt the words were going to stab at your throat until they broke through, revealing some horrible, unfaceable essential truth about you that you had tried to keep from your brother all of these years. you peeked as he was taking off his shirt, he kept sighing loudly and he smelled fresh somehow, alive, and as you slit your eyes open you saw a tattoo on the back of his right shoulder. the sight of it was like seeing a homeless person- pretend its not there, erase it from your memory, why did you look at all.
you had been there three days and had only eaten in the seal rock inn restaurant. the waitresses were beginning to think something was wrong, that someone was disabled somehow and couldnt leave the hotel. your brother, developing an art that would become one of his great helpers in life, was curious and friendly to the people who worked there, making jokes about your arrival, saying that you were moving in because their cooking was better than your moms. they were all older and laughed and smiled sweetly at you, and gave you endless refills of hot chocolate, and even brought the bowl of fresh whipped cream to the table and let you have it all.
the mornings are not good for your dad. the third morning you are there, seth says, lets go to alcatraz. your father says, no no im not up for it, this is supposed to be a vacation and im going to milk it for all its worth. but your father hasnt worked in months, only made set after set of business cards with his newly reinvented self (bank lobby redesigner, Y2K computer problem fixer) only to stow them on the shelf in the coat closet when, for whatever reason, that idea fails. you remember once, many years ago before your parents got divorced, your father said he was going to open up a mechanics shop and call it "arties" and you laughed at how ridiculous the idea was-- your father, the stoic banker with the briefcase and the highball glass, wearing overalls and chugging beer in some greasy garage??? you assumed he was kidding and then your mother shot you a look, one of the skeleton looks, where all that fleshed her out and made her your mother, all the goodnight kisses and pearl earrings and perfume, melted right away, and all that was left was an expression of devastating seriousness. you had only seen it a few times before that in your life, mainly when you were starting to say something in front of the whole family that they werent supposed to know about. like her speeding ticket or the time she told your father you two were going on a girl scout trip with your troop but actually just went down to the beach and rented a condo and built sandcastles even though it was fall.
so seth turns to you and says, ok miss hot chocolate lets go. and even though it makes something inside of your chest twist and ache, you leave your dishelved, tired dad sitting at the table facing yet another uneaten plate of bacon and eggs.
you take the BART to fishermans wharf and you wait in line for the ferry. at first you were nervous, you were awkward. seth is your half brother, so he grew up with his mom while you were growing up with yours. you have only seen him for, you guess, a month total in your life. he is a stranger at this point, a man picked randomly off the street with a nametag on that says "family." but after awhile you two start talking, and you are telling him about lance at school, and hes telling you about his friends and his parties and being a carpenter and being poor and being free and being so fucking (and he says the word too) glad to be out of georgia. he says hes always known there was more and sure enough, there is.
you get to alcatraz and go on the tour. your tour guide tells stories of people using a spoon to whittle their way out of the cell, and that it took them decades sometimes, and once they escaped theyd jump into the bay where they were either eaten by sharks or froze to death or drowned, since many of them didnt even know how to swim. they just didnt want to die in there, seth whispers, nodding toward the cell. then the tour guide opened up a cell and lets you stand in it for a minute, with the gate closed and everything. you go in and you blush becuase everyones watching you and you dont know what you are supposed to do or feel so you say, wow, and everyone laughs and then you leave and seth goes in. he looks around for a second and then he puts his hand on his chest like hes about to sneeze or cough and he says, quietly but quickly, let me out. and the tour guide lets him out and he has to go sit down for a long time. you lose the tour and decide its time to go back anyway. you eat a hot dog when you get back to the wharf and you wish you didnt have to go back to that dark room where the curtains are drawn and your clothes are strewn about, where your father is probably propped up in bed with all the lights off, watching the news or some stupid sitcom. he'll be in a better mood when you get back, like he took a nap or something even though you cant fathom how he could need more sleep.
when you get back on the BART seth puts his hand on your leg and says, dads drunk you know. and yeah, you did know that, somewhere inside of you. the part that lived with it for years, that saw him sink into that chair and that robe and endless monotony of his days after he got laid off from the bank. the part that lied about it to friends who were coming over, the part that heard your mom say to people on the phone, "hes not getting any better." that part knew. but the part that didnt understand what being drunk was, who didnt understand why he couldnt just stop, that part didnt know. you had seen an empty bottle in the trash, and like the homeless people and the tattoo, you looked away as if your eyes would burn. and you pretended it wasnt there, pretended a normal, sober, father with a job would still openly cry at eric clapton songs on VH1 unplugged, would still be able to tolerate not moving from one room, one bed, one outfit, for days at a time. hes not getting any better.
so you say, yeah, and seth leaves his hand on your leg until you emerge from the BART into the foggy muted day.
that night, as seth is taking off his contacts and you are sitting on the floor leaning up against the bed, the bed your father is dozing on, he drops one. he yells, fuck! and then a series of oh fucks follow. you ask whats wrong and he says that contact cost him two hundred dollars (they must be the hard ones your mother wears only when shes donning the pearl earrings and perfume, the ones that make her flinch to put in). he says he has to find it, hes nearly blind without it, his glasses are in monterey and besides theres no way he can afford a new pair. you start crawling around on the grainy carpet searching for them, your father still sleeping, your heartrate increasing exponentially with seth's terror. youre combing through every inch of carpet and you both know it must be there, somewhere. matter does not disappear, like ms. gray the science teacher says. you look at seth, hunched over, frantic, and right there on the collarbone of his tshirt is a tiny half bubble, clutching on to him. dont move, you say, and he immediately stops moving. you reach over to his shirt and pluck it off, and gingerly you present it to him. he looks at you and you look at him, and for some reason you have to use every muscle and every funny memory youve ever had not to burst into tears. he just looks at it for a minute, and then reaches over to you with both arms and hugs you tighter than youve ever been hugged.
and you really dont know why, but the funny memories dont work and you start to cry.

the break

we're in the car in the middle of the night driving to joshua tree to go see the wildflower explosion. im driving and daniel is next to me, and ted and lisa are in the back seat snuggled up and looking out of the same window. we're listening to hank williams. two days before i would not have expected to be here, since two days ago jonathan and i finally stopped pretending that everything was alright and decided to take a "break," a word that made me feel like i was in an airplane bathroom- stale, cramped, scared, uncomfortable. the whole point was to feel less smothered, wasnt that it? it didnt work that way for me, and as hank crooned im so lonesome i could cry, i started to understand that maybe that was a problem in my life, a reoccurring theme, perhaps even my tragic flaw. that being part of a relationship is what truly makes me feel free, its the base upon which all other happiness is constructed.
i look over at daniel. the day before jonathan sat on the edge of his bed and shook his head and said, "i just need some time," daniel had a seizure. he had never had one before and they couldnt figure out why, while walking down their hill to hollywood boulevard one saturday, he felt light headed and then collapsed onto the pavement, seizing. i met jonathan through daniel; they were high school friends and after college jonathan moved in with daniel. i met him at a party and knew we would date. as i was leaving that party i hugged daniel goodbye and he said to me, i really care about you. and i laughed and said, of course you do, and patted him on the back and left. he had been my best friend for years.
we had all planned this massive road trip up to canada for spring break, but after the seizure and the breakup the prospect of ten days in the car with them seemed dangerous. but on friday morning daniel said, lets just go to joshua tree, spend one night and see the flowers. and ted and lisa were up for it, they camp a lot together because they are this perfectly healthy, happy combination of people that exist to love each other and compliment each other and be each others best friends. it probably wasnt a good idea for me to be surrounded by this dangling carrot of what could have been, what i could have had. what i deserve, but what just doesnt seem possible.
we leave at dusk, get high in the carpool lane and watch the day bow into night. we dont talk that much, no one even mentions the breakup though i knew everyone knew about it. we had been dating for almost a year. when we first started we were like a new house, like one of those cookie cutter houses in subdivisions, all clean and crisp and easy. and then before our very eyes the brand new walls started to crack and crumble, and termites nibbled at the foundation, and the plumbing stopped working. it was as if the house aged a hundred years in just one. and the worse it got, the less romantic we were, the less i felt wanted, the less interested he seemed, the more we ignored it, the harder we pushed until finally the house caved in on itself and left us dusty and dismayed, shaking our heads at what all had been ruined.
we pass by a row of fast food chains, their symbols float towards us like apparitions. mcdonalds, del taco, burger king, and then target, costco, ikea. all one after the other, and the only thing we can make out in the dark is the glowing logo. it makes me feel sick with lonlieness, like im five and my moms out of town, and its past my bedtime but my dad doesnt know that because he's never put me to bed before. and even though i would have loved to watch unsolved mysteries at ten o clock when things are normal, doing it on a school night when your mom is away on business is the emptiest thing youve ever known.
we pull up to a tiny parking space of a camping lot and start setting up the tent and building a fire. it isnt very cold, and we still arent saying much. we drink a few bottles of wine sitting around the fire and then crawl into the tent. im in between lisa and daniel, and i can feel the graspingness of ted and lisa, the pull, the movement of them settling into each other. daniel is laying on his back and i squeeze my eyes shut hard enough to avoid the tears.
we wake up in the morning and everything looks completely different. joshua tree isnt pretty, its dry and barren and wide and gaping, and it doesnt look friendly at all. we pack up and realize that somehow ted's shoes are missing, which makes us howl with laughter for the first time in days. all four pair were sitting outside the tent and when we woke up there were only three left. so we drive to a gas station and lisa picks out the most hideous pair of black slip ons we have ever seen, and we're laughing so hard in the isles that a cashier comes over to see whats going on. its even funnier to see him, all six foot five of him, in black socks pulled up and those sandals.
we drive to the mouth of a trail and set out to see the flowers. its unbearably hot and the hike is more difficult than i imagine. we get to the place where the newspaper said was a good spot for seeing the flowers, but there are far fewer than we had expected. from what we saw in the la times, there were supposed to be oceans of them, purples and yellows and reds undulating under the vast sky. we wonder if we got the place wrong and start walking back to the car. im the last in line and when we are nearing the parking lot ted turns around to me and says, "im really sorry about you and jonathan." he stops walking and looks at me in the eye and it takes all of the strength i have to not burst into tears, to not grab fistfuls of the dirt, to not just say jonathans name over and over. i wonder if he would get it, or if he would look over at lisa and daniel and try not to laugh, or if he would just say, jesus christ calm down.
in the car we start driving around the park and things start looking greener. we're listening to amnesiac and the windows are rolled down and i look in the backseat at daniel and ted and they are both looking out of their respective windows, both smiling, like they are remembering a funny joke. the road is winding and hilly and i love driving it, i feel like im excercising. we come around a turn and see dozens of parked cars and then we see it- fields and fields and fields of flowers. lisa says it first.
there it is.
we park the car and get out. surrounded by the mountains, some of them with the picturesque hat of snow on top, are planes of flowers. the colors sort of stick together in some places and in others they are all mixed in with each other. they are waving a bit in the breeze and there are at least 30 people standing on the side of the road looking in awe. lisa is taking pictures and daniel says, "this is better than i imagined." we stand there for a minute, just trying to understand. something about the weather this year caused it. it hasnt been like this in decades, since anyone can remember.
a woman standing in front of a volvo station wagon does it first. im not sure why we hadnt yet, but she just starts walking into them. shes just walking and smiling, all by herself, and the sight of it is so precious that it causes one of those moments- an it isnt so bad moment. a moment that makes you actually excited about living, about being able to be alive and part of anything like this. and soon of course, since she had given us permission, we are all walking into the fields of flowers, kneeling down in them, sitting down in them, just standing still in the middle of the miles of them. ted and lisa are standing with their arms around each other, not saying anything, and i look over at daniel and smile. he says,
im so glad we came.
and i say, me too.

i've got it all.

maybe it was the ten foot tall sculpture of dead rats glued together, but she was beginning to feel very strange. she was on her first date with gabriel at the saatchi gallery and she was sure that there wouldnt be another (though actually there would be one more- he would come to her loft with his nearly mute cousin and they would gulp down vinegary wine at a dark pub across the street before she told him it just wasnt going to work, before she told him to loosen his grip on her as he was hugging her goodnight, stabbing hard kisses on her neck and cheeks). they had met at the club on her campus; after a few pints of beer she felt like stirring something up and walked up to his table, where he was surrounded by equally awkward looking paint-stained-hands artist types, and told him she liked his jacket. which she didnt- it was ripped up patches of denim and canvas and pin-stripe messily sewn together and splattered with images like sid vicious's face.
i like your jacket, she said as she made a teepee with her fingers on their sticky table.
his thinning blond hair was cut at a jagged angle and his eyes stuck out from his head. he wasnt cute, just to clarify. but he looked interesting, and as i've already told you, she was in the mood to stir something up. he looked at his friends and then at her and said, with an expression that exploded off of his face,
mine?
and then a week later on a cold grey day in feburary they were at the saatchi gallery laughing at the wax tourists placed strategically around the museum, scaring the shit out of them at every turn. as they were standing next to each other looking at a piece he would lean into her, sometimes more violently than others, and though after the 17th time she felt he needed a new trick, it was charming at first. she was enjoying herself despite the strange feeling; she was mostly enjoying how desparately he was enjoying her (which, as you know, isnt a strange way to feel).
oh they kissed that night at the club, i forgot that part. though she was there with someone she was already sort of involved with, in a peripheral but still extremely insidious way. and gabriel kept walking up to her, after the jacket comment but before the kiss, and she would look over at the peripheral boy and roll her eyes, just to ensure he understood that she was being courted and could take it or leave it, really. and though she pretended to be irritated by his incessant attention, as he was leaving she snuck into the stairwell with him and let him engulf her. but only for a minute.
at the saatchi gallery he began making comments about valentines day. as in, "my friend has a lovely boat we could take for a go on the thames." the thought of it made her feel itchy all over, and she had no plans of ever seeing him again as i said earlier, so she would reply with something coy like, "we'll see." it was driving him mad all over the museum. she adored one of the tracey emin pieces so much that she told him he could go busy himself with something else for awhile but she had to stay there for at least ten minutes. he stood there with her the entire time, quietly too.
the picture is of a woman sitting on the floor wearing a dress with her legs spread open. there are coins and pound notes spilling out from her crotch and all in between the triangle her outstretched legs are making, and the woman, though you cant see her face is obviously gorgeous (you can tell by the line of her collarbones, the evenness of her skin, the arc of her arm). shes bent over the money, and shes collecting it, pulling it all toward her with open, hungry palms. what makes it so perfect is that you cant tell if the coins are escaping and shes trying to hold them in, or if shes found them and is trying to keep them to herself.
the name of the picture is "ive got it all."
after he kissed her ravenously on the london bridge she, keeping a taut pull the whole time, told him she had to be going, her friends were expecting her for dinner. he stroked her face and said
you know i'm mad for you.
she said, are you?
and as she began walking across the bridge to get on the tube that would take her back to her tiny loft in the east side of london, it began to snow.

rapunzel

once there was a princess who was locked away at the top of a very tall tower. she languished there alone and lonely, her only friend the endless blanket of her perfectly golden blonde hair. she brushed it and looked at it, and marvelled at it underneath the changing light of day- the way it looked simple and happy in the morning, then denser and more complicated as the day went on, until it finally looked so sad and pallid that willed herself to sleep in order to avoid it. sometimes she would untie the laces binding her inside of her dress, slip out of it, let her stiff white petticoats drop to her ankles and feel her hair against the pure untouched meadow of her skin. the only person she ever saw was a woman who her father had hired to keep her bathed and fed-- once she was beginning to show the signs of womanhood (her eyes grew corners, her body grew curves), he banished her there so that he would never be faced with that ultimate and unspoken rivalry. she used to peer from the tiny porthole, gasping at the sight of colors, motion, depth, anxiously awaiting her turn at it all. she hadnt looked out in years.
soon however, word got out that a beautiful virginal creature lay waiting suitors, if only they could reach her. she learned of this news from the woman who took care of her, and her only advice was, dont let down your hair.
men lined up to catch a glimpse of her, to prove that they were the strongest, the most worthy. she was excited by the prospect of her life changing, and she so desparately wanted to get out, if only to fail and falter, that she went against her maids wishes and let her hair down to the first man who pleaded
rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your golden hair.
the sound of his voice made her sink into herself, too scared and too thrilled to do anything. he asked again.
rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your golden hair.
and so, timidly, for no one had ever touched her hair before, and hardly anyone had ever seen it, she unravelled her best friend, herself, through the porthole for the man's consumption. she peeked her eyes out of the window to watch his reaction, but when she looked down she saw many many men, some of them laughing, some of them with knives and bags.
oh rapunzel, the first man said after he had quieted the others, how i love you! your hair is as beautiful as the sun, i do not know how i have lived before you.
but before he began to climb up it she was already reeling it back in, desparately, hysterically, ashamed and silenced by her grave mistake. he didnt want to show her the world, he didnt want to let her fail and falter. he wanted to take a slice of her back to his home and show it off. he wanted to own her.
men kept coming and she refused to even go to the window. she wiped her tears with her hair and she alternated between imagining strangling herself with it and just letting it down anyway, letting herself be used by them. she wasnt sure which was a worse thought.
but one night, as she lay in a nest of her hair unable to feel tired at all, she heard a whisper. it said
im trapped too.
she thought at first she was beginning the decline into insanity, into insanity due to nothingness, but then she heard it again, crisp and masculine and as haunting as it was relieving.
im trapped too.
she allowed half an eye to peek out the porthole. underneath the moonlight was an empty handed man. for no good reason at all, but for the first time in her life, she felt the strange and dangerous pang of trusting someone.
do you want my hair? she asked him.
your hair? why, what would i do with your hair?
well, im not sure. it just seems to be what i have to offer.
no, he said. i want your tale. i want to hear how it feels up there, and if you ever get so lonely that theres only one color, one voice, one memory, one fear.
yes, she whispered. yes.
i want to know if you are at all angry, if you are ashamed, if you are happy up there, content and embedded in habit. i want to know if you desire to escape, or if you are scared of what awaits you.
she fit her shoulder and her arm out of the porthole and reached for him, and as he extended his arm in an equally ineffectual movement, he said,
we will escape.
and they did.