"Eels" - 2008
I’ve been having this recurring dream. Eels. I’m standing at the edge of this pond looking down and I don’t see my reflection, just hundreds and thousands of eels, swimming so fast all I see are their glittering backs writhing around like iridescent fingers worming through portals.
I can see him in the bedroom, straightening his tie in the mirror and I can tell exactly what he is thinking.
“Aren’t you going to start getting ready?”
I am wearing that bathrobe he hates.
“In a minute.”
“You’re going to love them. Really.”
“But are they going to love me?”
“Of course.” He’s still looking at that damn tie. “Everybody loves you.”
It’s a long walk to his friend’s apartment and I’m already wishing I had a heavier coat. I wore James’ favorite dress, it’s the color of pewter and hangs on every curve.
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be.”
I reach for his hand and it feels warmer than mine but not warm enough.
“Can we go to the aquarium tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“I want to see the eels.”
He kisses the top of my head.
“We’ll see.”
He always says that.
A woman answers the door and from the looks of her I’m guessing it’s Natasha. Natasha is the wife of James’ close friend Tom. Tom is a writer like James, but he’s slightly older and more established. It’s been six months and I still haven’t met most of his friends, but then he’s never met mine, nor does he show interest to.
Natasha is wearing a heavy necklace that looks like Jade and her lipstick is perfectly penciled.
“Hello hello!”
She kisses James on the cheek and opens the door, motioning to enter.
“You must be the famous Casey.”
“I am.”
“Finally we meet! Tom’s on the phone with his sister, he’ll be out in a minute. Can I get you two anything to drink?”
Their sofa feels stiff like elephant skin and though it looks nice is uncomfortable to sit on. I’m afraid if I move I’ll tear it. My dress is bunching in all the wrong places.
When Natasha comes back with our drinks I just clench the wine glass in my hand, scanning the room with a smile plastered on my face.
Tom comes in holding a martini.
“I apologize. You must think I am so obnoxious.”
“Not at all,” I say.
“Casey, right? James, why didn’t you tell me how stunning she is?”
He decided beforehand that he would say that.
“Your apartment is lovely,” I say.
Natasha’s eyes widen. “Oh God, I’m sorry you have to see it in this state. We’re re-doing the entire thing this month. You should come back in December, it’s going to look much more finished.”
She puts three fingers on her forehead and rolls her eyes upward. “I am so tired of looking at these green walls. And the table is dreadful. I finally convinced Tom to get a new table.”
Tom chimes in, “But you know, once we get a new table- everything has to go. Because nothing matches the new one.”
James is giving me this look like he wants me to say something interesting so they’ll like me.
“Excuse me, but do you have a bathroom I could use?”
“No,” Tom says mock sincerely, “You’ll have to go outside.”
He howls with laughter. Natasha and James get a good laugh out of this, too.
In between sputtering laughs he says, “It’s upstairs, second door on the right.”
As I make my way up the stairs they are still in hysterics.
Their bathroom is an ugly red with gold bees on the walls. They have soap in the shape of lemons that smells nice, and linen embroidered hand towels that don’t do a particularly good job of drying my hands but are still pretty. I open the mirror and find a few rows of pills but resist the temptation to look at the labels. I wonder how many pills Tom has to take to sleep at night. I wonder how many pills Natasha has to take to feel happy.
I want to hide out in here. When I was a little kid I used to lock myself in the bathroom whenever my Mom was making me go somewhere I didn’t want to go. Once I did that and in a fit I cut my hair in uneven chunks, I’m not sure why. I remember thinking the slivers of hair looked pretty swimming in the toilet bowl.
I take a pair of nail scissors out of the mirror cabinet. Looking in the mirror I cut into the ends of my hair, and I think how I love the sound the scissors make as they slice down. I cut a couple inches off and put the scissors back, then rinse the hair out of the sink.
Downstairs I can hear an unfamiliar man’s voice that is louder than the rest. I appear in the doorway and James throws me a look like a knife.
“Oh, Casey. We were just talking about you,” Natasha says. She’s tilting her head just a few centimeters and trying to figure out why I look different.
“Come sit down. This is Richard. Rich, Casey.”
“Hi there,” he says, extending a large hand.
Richard continues, “As I was saying, the novel is more existential than anything else. Under the surface it’s really about ethical egoism, you know- it’s selfish in a way. A lot like Rand…”
I’m watching his mouth move but I don’t really hear what he’s saying.
Suddenly I feel incredibly fat. Grotesque. I am trying to suck in my stomach but it’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to breathe in there anyway. The way everyone talks is so goddamn boring it’s stifling.
I read once that eels can breathe through their skin as well as their gills. Imagine that.
“Have you read it Casey?”
I look from Richard to Natasha to Tom to James. They are all looking at me, waiting. I can see the panic in James’ eyebrows and in the corners of his twitching mouth.
don’t say something stupid casey don’t fuck this up just make something up please don’t embarrass me
“A while back, yes. Although I didn’t think it was like Ayn Rand at all. The writing was far too…emotive.”
James looks relieved and the rest of them are sort of slanting their eyes and nodding. Natasha is pursing her lips.
“That’s interesting Casey. Emotive…”
“By the way,” Richard says, “why isn’t Linda here? I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“Oh- no one has, she’s going through a tough time with Michael.” Natasha does a half-whisper on the last four words even though we’re the only people in the room and are all clearly intended to hear them.
“What kind of a tough time?” James asks.
“Oh- you know. He always had a wandering eye.”
Tom leans back, folding his arms over his chest, nodding. James raises his eyebrows.
“Don’t tell me you never noticed. At all our parties!”
James puts his scotch down. “Did she know?”
Natasha pauses. “I don’t know. I think it was the earrings that did it.”
“What earrings?”
“Well. It’s an ugly story, really. For their anniversary two weeks ago he took her to The Palm for dinner and gave her these diamond earrings. They really are gorgeous. Anyway, she was so delighted. And then one day, she got in her car to go to yoga class and it was raining so she opened up the glove box to check for an umbrella. And there was a receipt.”
“Oh no-” Richard says, covering his mouth.
“Oh yes,” Natasha hisses. “The receipt was for not one, but two pairs of diamond earrings.”
“Poor thing,” James says, shaking his head.
“So she calls me, frantic. She keeps saying, ‘It could be that he bought the earrings separately. They’re not two pairs, just- two individual earrings. Right?’
“I didn’t want to be the one to break it to her but I said, ‘Honey. They don’t sell earrings separately. They sell them in pairs.’
“She was a wreck. An absolute wreck. She asked me to come to the jeweler’s with her, so of course I did. The man at the counter looked at the receipt and then at her. Oh my god, you should have seen him. He sighed and said, ‘I’m so sorry miss. This is for two pairs of diamond earrings. I’m afraid we see this all the time.’ ”
“Jesus.”
“She was hysterical on the ride home. I tried to talk to her about it but she was so embarrassed, I don’t think she wanted to see anyone. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Richard sighs. “That’s absolutely tragic.”
“I know. She was my best friend, you know.” Natasha tilts her head and continues. “But really, I never thought Michael was right for her. He was far too…clever. I love Linda, I do. But she’s not the brightest. I think he was bored with her.”
Tom has been entirely still and quiet throughout the story.
I try to imagine Tom cheating on Natasha with some young thing, some secretary at his agent’s office. A leggy Norwegian blonde with huge tits. It’s not difficult to imagine.
I bet while he fucks other women he whispers E. E. Cummings into their ears. I bet he thinks he’s a regular Bukowski.
I am beginning to feel sick and am trying to imagine the outrage on Natasha’ face if I threw up the Brie and pâté and wine on her cream-colored rug. I feel like all of my insides are creeping up my throat and I will turn inside out.
The short finned eel stops eating and looses its guts so it will have room to fit 3,000,000 eggs. Without their guts they rely on stored energy alone. Not all of them survive, of course. It seems so selfless, to give up all your insides to make room for eggs.
“I told Casey, God knows what she must think of us the way our apartment is in complete disarray. You know the decorator we had before said she thought we should keep the green, she absolutely insisted. I had to get rid of her. Now we have a new decorator who’s been experimenting with a scheme of crimson and beige…”
Tom is checking his watch as if he has somewhere else to be.
“Natasha would you check on the dinner?” Tom has a way of asking Natasha this as if she is a child who needs to be given orders, and in a very small way I feel empathy for her. I know what that tone sounds like because James uses it on me all the time.
“Of course. Please excuse me.”
Over his glass of wine, Richard’s beaty eyes settle on me.
“So Casey. What is it that you do?”
“I’m working at the aquarium. I organize the exhibits. We have a new exhibit on eels, actually -”
“That’s fascinating,” Tom interjects. “James tells me you write!”
“Oh, sort of.”
“No one ‘sort of’ writes, Casey. James tells me you’re good at it.”
“James doesn’t even like my writing!” I say, laughing, before realizing the awkward nature of my comment.
James looks at me like he wants to strangle me.
“Casey! That’s complete nonsense, I love your writing.”
Natasha returns and says, “Dinner will be in several minutes. Let’s head to the dining room, shall we?”
The dining room is the same ugly red as the bathroom, but no bees. There is a giant painting of a pear on the wall that is almost obscene. We are all sitting down when I realize I still haven’t put my napkin in my lap.
Dinner is filet mignon with grilled asparagus and sautéed wild mushrooms in some kind of sauce. I am self-conscious eating and am very careful to cut my bites the right size and not to push my food too much around on my plate.
“This is delicious, Natasha” James says.
“I’ll have to tell the cook. It’s not overcooked?”
“No. Perfect.”
I can hear my chewing. I can hear it pulsating in my head and it’s driving me insane. I wonder if everyone else can hear it. No one is saying anything. I can’t figure out if Tom is eating so fast because the food tastes good or because then he doesn’t have to talk. I wonder if he always does this at dinner with Natasha so he doesn’t have to talk. Richard has begun talking about some article in the Atlantic Monthly but I can’t focus. I’m trying to keep eye contact and give ambiguous responses so it seems like I’m listening.
The life cycle of the eel is complex and therefore remains partly a mystery. It starts its life as a tiny transparent sexless larva in the Coral Sea near New Guinea. It slowly starts to develop as it moves south with the currents to New Zealand. It takes one to three years for the larvae to swim down the east coast of Australia and enter freshwater estuaries. The larva that travel up stream become females and the ones that stay in the estuaries become males. When the female eels travel upstream they leave the males behind, and when they get to where they lay their eggs, they die. They are brave.
I’m thinking about this when something happens. My eyes settle on Natasha as I’m chewing and she’s laughing, her head thrown back and her hair falling in perfect pieces on her shoulders. She is beautiful and miserable. She is the wife of a successful writer. My hair is uneven and my dress is bunching and bulging and I feel like I’m going to vomit. These are James’ closest friends and I can barely get through a dinner with them. I stand up.
“Thank you so much for dinner.”
I begin to gather my purse when James grabs hold of my arm.
“Where are you going, Casey?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Casey. Stop. What are you talking about? Sit down.”
“Thanks again, I hope you all enjoy the rest of your night.”
Natasha has a forkful of food paused mid-air, her face twisted in utter bewilderment. Tom has his hands folded in his lap and is looking halfway across his shoulder, calm. Richard is looking at me through squinted eyes as if to say he knew I would do this all along. And James. James looks furious in a childish way that I almost feel sorry for him.
I turn my back and walk out the door, and I can hear the deafening silence I have left behind even as I walk down the stairs.
The cold air feels nice on my neck and I feel like I have shed a layer of skin and am new again. I have survived. I belong.
Before completing its life the eel starts its long journey back to the coast of New Guinea.
Only one percent of eels complete the whole life cycle.
I can see him in the bedroom, straightening his tie in the mirror and I can tell exactly what he is thinking.
“Aren’t you going to start getting ready?”
I am wearing that bathrobe he hates.
“In a minute.”
“You’re going to love them. Really.”
“But are they going to love me?”
“Of course.” He’s still looking at that damn tie. “Everybody loves you.”
It’s a long walk to his friend’s apartment and I’m already wishing I had a heavier coat. I wore James’ favorite dress, it’s the color of pewter and hangs on every curve.
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be.”
I reach for his hand and it feels warmer than mine but not warm enough.
“Can we go to the aquarium tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“I want to see the eels.”
He kisses the top of my head.
“We’ll see.”
He always says that.
A woman answers the door and from the looks of her I’m guessing it’s Natasha. Natasha is the wife of James’ close friend Tom. Tom is a writer like James, but he’s slightly older and more established. It’s been six months and I still haven’t met most of his friends, but then he’s never met mine, nor does he show interest to.
Natasha is wearing a heavy necklace that looks like Jade and her lipstick is perfectly penciled.
“Hello hello!”
She kisses James on the cheek and opens the door, motioning to enter.
“You must be the famous Casey.”
“I am.”
“Finally we meet! Tom’s on the phone with his sister, he’ll be out in a minute. Can I get you two anything to drink?”
Their sofa feels stiff like elephant skin and though it looks nice is uncomfortable to sit on. I’m afraid if I move I’ll tear it. My dress is bunching in all the wrong places.
When Natasha comes back with our drinks I just clench the wine glass in my hand, scanning the room with a smile plastered on my face.
Tom comes in holding a martini.
“I apologize. You must think I am so obnoxious.”
“Not at all,” I say.
“Casey, right? James, why didn’t you tell me how stunning she is?”
He decided beforehand that he would say that.
“Your apartment is lovely,” I say.
Natasha’s eyes widen. “Oh God, I’m sorry you have to see it in this state. We’re re-doing the entire thing this month. You should come back in December, it’s going to look much more finished.”
She puts three fingers on her forehead and rolls her eyes upward. “I am so tired of looking at these green walls. And the table is dreadful. I finally convinced Tom to get a new table.”
Tom chimes in, “But you know, once we get a new table- everything has to go. Because nothing matches the new one.”
James is giving me this look like he wants me to say something interesting so they’ll like me.
“Excuse me, but do you have a bathroom I could use?”
“No,” Tom says mock sincerely, “You’ll have to go outside.”
He howls with laughter. Natasha and James get a good laugh out of this, too.
In between sputtering laughs he says, “It’s upstairs, second door on the right.”
As I make my way up the stairs they are still in hysterics.
Their bathroom is an ugly red with gold bees on the walls. They have soap in the shape of lemons that smells nice, and linen embroidered hand towels that don’t do a particularly good job of drying my hands but are still pretty. I open the mirror and find a few rows of pills but resist the temptation to look at the labels. I wonder how many pills Tom has to take to sleep at night. I wonder how many pills Natasha has to take to feel happy.
I want to hide out in here. When I was a little kid I used to lock myself in the bathroom whenever my Mom was making me go somewhere I didn’t want to go. Once I did that and in a fit I cut my hair in uneven chunks, I’m not sure why. I remember thinking the slivers of hair looked pretty swimming in the toilet bowl.
I take a pair of nail scissors out of the mirror cabinet. Looking in the mirror I cut into the ends of my hair, and I think how I love the sound the scissors make as they slice down. I cut a couple inches off and put the scissors back, then rinse the hair out of the sink.
Downstairs I can hear an unfamiliar man’s voice that is louder than the rest. I appear in the doorway and James throws me a look like a knife.
“Oh, Casey. We were just talking about you,” Natasha says. She’s tilting her head just a few centimeters and trying to figure out why I look different.
“Come sit down. This is Richard. Rich, Casey.”
“Hi there,” he says, extending a large hand.
Richard continues, “As I was saying, the novel is more existential than anything else. Under the surface it’s really about ethical egoism, you know- it’s selfish in a way. A lot like Rand…”
I’m watching his mouth move but I don’t really hear what he’s saying.
Suddenly I feel incredibly fat. Grotesque. I am trying to suck in my stomach but it’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to breathe in there anyway. The way everyone talks is so goddamn boring it’s stifling.
I read once that eels can breathe through their skin as well as their gills. Imagine that.
“Have you read it Casey?”
I look from Richard to Natasha to Tom to James. They are all looking at me, waiting. I can see the panic in James’ eyebrows and in the corners of his twitching mouth.
don’t say something stupid casey don’t fuck this up just make something up please don’t embarrass me
“A while back, yes. Although I didn’t think it was like Ayn Rand at all. The writing was far too…emotive.”
James looks relieved and the rest of them are sort of slanting their eyes and nodding. Natasha is pursing her lips.
“That’s interesting Casey. Emotive…”
“By the way,” Richard says, “why isn’t Linda here? I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“Oh- no one has, she’s going through a tough time with Michael.” Natasha does a half-whisper on the last four words even though we’re the only people in the room and are all clearly intended to hear them.
“What kind of a tough time?” James asks.
“Oh- you know. He always had a wandering eye.”
Tom leans back, folding his arms over his chest, nodding. James raises his eyebrows.
“Don’t tell me you never noticed. At all our parties!”
James puts his scotch down. “Did she know?”
Natasha pauses. “I don’t know. I think it was the earrings that did it.”
“What earrings?”
“Well. It’s an ugly story, really. For their anniversary two weeks ago he took her to The Palm for dinner and gave her these diamond earrings. They really are gorgeous. Anyway, she was so delighted. And then one day, she got in her car to go to yoga class and it was raining so she opened up the glove box to check for an umbrella. And there was a receipt.”
“Oh no-” Richard says, covering his mouth.
“Oh yes,” Natasha hisses. “The receipt was for not one, but two pairs of diamond earrings.”
“Poor thing,” James says, shaking his head.
“So she calls me, frantic. She keeps saying, ‘It could be that he bought the earrings separately. They’re not two pairs, just- two individual earrings. Right?’
“I didn’t want to be the one to break it to her but I said, ‘Honey. They don’t sell earrings separately. They sell them in pairs.’
“She was a wreck. An absolute wreck. She asked me to come to the jeweler’s with her, so of course I did. The man at the counter looked at the receipt and then at her. Oh my god, you should have seen him. He sighed and said, ‘I’m so sorry miss. This is for two pairs of diamond earrings. I’m afraid we see this all the time.’ ”
“Jesus.”
“She was hysterical on the ride home. I tried to talk to her about it but she was so embarrassed, I don’t think she wanted to see anyone. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Richard sighs. “That’s absolutely tragic.”
“I know. She was my best friend, you know.” Natasha tilts her head and continues. “But really, I never thought Michael was right for her. He was far too…clever. I love Linda, I do. But she’s not the brightest. I think he was bored with her.”
Tom has been entirely still and quiet throughout the story.
I try to imagine Tom cheating on Natasha with some young thing, some secretary at his agent’s office. A leggy Norwegian blonde with huge tits. It’s not difficult to imagine.
I bet while he fucks other women he whispers E. E. Cummings into their ears. I bet he thinks he’s a regular Bukowski.
I am beginning to feel sick and am trying to imagine the outrage on Natasha’ face if I threw up the Brie and pâté and wine on her cream-colored rug. I feel like all of my insides are creeping up my throat and I will turn inside out.
The short finned eel stops eating and looses its guts so it will have room to fit 3,000,000 eggs. Without their guts they rely on stored energy alone. Not all of them survive, of course. It seems so selfless, to give up all your insides to make room for eggs.
“I told Casey, God knows what she must think of us the way our apartment is in complete disarray. You know the decorator we had before said she thought we should keep the green, she absolutely insisted. I had to get rid of her. Now we have a new decorator who’s been experimenting with a scheme of crimson and beige…”
Tom is checking his watch as if he has somewhere else to be.
“Natasha would you check on the dinner?” Tom has a way of asking Natasha this as if she is a child who needs to be given orders, and in a very small way I feel empathy for her. I know what that tone sounds like because James uses it on me all the time.
“Of course. Please excuse me.”
Over his glass of wine, Richard’s beaty eyes settle on me.
“So Casey. What is it that you do?”
“I’m working at the aquarium. I organize the exhibits. We have a new exhibit on eels, actually -”
“That’s fascinating,” Tom interjects. “James tells me you write!”
“Oh, sort of.”
“No one ‘sort of’ writes, Casey. James tells me you’re good at it.”
“James doesn’t even like my writing!” I say, laughing, before realizing the awkward nature of my comment.
James looks at me like he wants to strangle me.
“Casey! That’s complete nonsense, I love your writing.”
Natasha returns and says, “Dinner will be in several minutes. Let’s head to the dining room, shall we?”
The dining room is the same ugly red as the bathroom, but no bees. There is a giant painting of a pear on the wall that is almost obscene. We are all sitting down when I realize I still haven’t put my napkin in my lap.
Dinner is filet mignon with grilled asparagus and sautéed wild mushrooms in some kind of sauce. I am self-conscious eating and am very careful to cut my bites the right size and not to push my food too much around on my plate.
“This is delicious, Natasha” James says.
“I’ll have to tell the cook. It’s not overcooked?”
“No. Perfect.”
I can hear my chewing. I can hear it pulsating in my head and it’s driving me insane. I wonder if everyone else can hear it. No one is saying anything. I can’t figure out if Tom is eating so fast because the food tastes good or because then he doesn’t have to talk. I wonder if he always does this at dinner with Natasha so he doesn’t have to talk. Richard has begun talking about some article in the Atlantic Monthly but I can’t focus. I’m trying to keep eye contact and give ambiguous responses so it seems like I’m listening.
The life cycle of the eel is complex and therefore remains partly a mystery. It starts its life as a tiny transparent sexless larva in the Coral Sea near New Guinea. It slowly starts to develop as it moves south with the currents to New Zealand. It takes one to three years for the larvae to swim down the east coast of Australia and enter freshwater estuaries. The larva that travel up stream become females and the ones that stay in the estuaries become males. When the female eels travel upstream they leave the males behind, and when they get to where they lay their eggs, they die. They are brave.
I’m thinking about this when something happens. My eyes settle on Natasha as I’m chewing and she’s laughing, her head thrown back and her hair falling in perfect pieces on her shoulders. She is beautiful and miserable. She is the wife of a successful writer. My hair is uneven and my dress is bunching and bulging and I feel like I’m going to vomit. These are James’ closest friends and I can barely get through a dinner with them. I stand up.
“Thank you so much for dinner.”
I begin to gather my purse when James grabs hold of my arm.
“Where are you going, Casey?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Casey. Stop. What are you talking about? Sit down.”
“Thanks again, I hope you all enjoy the rest of your night.”
Natasha has a forkful of food paused mid-air, her face twisted in utter bewilderment. Tom has his hands folded in his lap and is looking halfway across his shoulder, calm. Richard is looking at me through squinted eyes as if to say he knew I would do this all along. And James. James looks furious in a childish way that I almost feel sorry for him.
I turn my back and walk out the door, and I can hear the deafening silence I have left behind even as I walk down the stairs.
The cold air feels nice on my neck and I feel like I have shed a layer of skin and am new again. I have survived. I belong.
Before completing its life the eel starts its long journey back to the coast of New Guinea.
Only one percent of eels complete the whole life cycle.