Jenny Drai's Plumage, Skin

pasta when you arrive home from work before me. For so long, that world was our globe. Now the lady—she wears a white smock with thin, candy-pink pinstripes—makes a checkmark on her list next to the words white/hazelnut to mark this cake as a possibility. Despite the face I made shoveling the pale crumbs into my mouth. The whole process makes you strange to me. I wonder about the lady, how eager she is to provide cake. Behind us, somewhere, an air conditioner hums. Once, perhaps, the lady also wore the shadow of wings. But the hunter steals the swan woman’s cloak in so many of the old stories. He hides the feathery garment away. And then the swan woman marries him, though with different results.

I don’t like sleeping with you while wearing the ring. I always find some excuse to take it off. To slide out of its thin, scalloped edge, its rising point of shining stone. Over the years, I’ve mentioned in passing that I don’t care much for diamonds, obviously to no avail. But you insisted, telling me: Oh, come on, sweetie, I can’t have you walking around without a ring. And in a way, you were right. Because it was always the left hand that people looked at as soon as we announced our engagement. Once, at my brother’s house in the suburbs, I stood out on the front sidewalk with a group of women, children playing around us. They fawned over the ring, examining its every angle. They had words to describe it, brightness, and so on, ones I had heard from the mouth of another lady, the one standing at the jewelry store when you brought me to the store for resizing. Do you like the ring? she asked, her white teeth blazing a smile. I wanted to tell her I would have been happy without one, but the look in her eyes told me there was only one correct answer. And there was my mother as well, who bought three wedding planners within an hour of learning you had proposed. A ring like that, she said as soon as she saw it, one eyebrow raised in appreciation, means he can provide. Provide what,

I wondered? Shelter, no, let us live under leaves. Sustenance, please don’t, there is plenty here for both of us. Just look at my long neck as I dive below the lake’s glossy surface. The fish here are plentiful, or they were, once upon a time. Now the fish are disappearing, and the wild in me is dissolving, picking venues, selecting flowers, squeezing myself into dresses, because no one, not my mother, not my friends, will believe me when I say I would be

happy to elope. And yet I still don’t give a hoot about overpriced chunks of pressurized carbon marketed as symbols of commitment. Love is something different. An open window, one long evening stretching out. In the lake, under a wide sky, I can feel the thrum of this love, a pulse clouding and throbbing below the tough skin of my neck. I want so many people to see this—my mother, my friends, my brother’s wife, the cake lady, the ring-dress-flower ladies—to see and believe that this is enough, but they rise up in a swarm and refuse to accept my word. And you, you believe them too, you think this is what swans want, and I don’t know yet how to tell you you’re obscuring me. That you’ve captured my cloak only because you’ve been told that you should.

Now all that pulsing blood sticks in my veins. The new sample is chocolate cake with raspberry filling. Cloying and sweet. My teeth ache from the sugar. I imagine shiny granules, seeping through enamel. There is no boundary, or one exists but the border has been breached. You finish your coffee and the lady asks if you would like more. When you say yes, she gets you a fresh cup, the old one discarded. As I shovel the new sample into my mouth with the tiny plastic fork, I feel something weighty slip through my fingers. Until our engagement, we had never been on display. Somehow, with this sample, and despite the fork, I get goopy raspberry all over my hand. In this skin, fingers are important. Whenever the diamond on my left hand glitters in the passing light, my throat constricts, my chest pulls tight, the green wood disappears, the wide sky collapses, and the lake, oh, the lake, the water evaporates.

There was another before you. She was also a swan. With Dara, I thought I could evade capture. As hunters approached the lake, we bathed loose in the water. It’s her I think of now, as if she could have meant escape. On the drive to the bakery today, we passed the lake with the swans. I sat in the passenger seat and watched one stately bird glide across the water. A pen, perhaps, on the way to meet her cob. Or, not. In every corner, cakes linger, or the wagging tongues eating the cake, salivating over morsels, the same tongues who whisper behind my back, refusing to believe me when I say I don’t want cake. So I’ve given in. I don’t want to be pitied, condescended to, told: Oh, you poor thing, you didn’t even have a real wedding. From my perch

in the car, I could see how garbage gathered in various places at the edge of the lake as we drove past, caught up in grasses. Plastic water bottles mostly, but no, not just water, also soda containers, energy drinks, chip bags, candy bar wrappers. No escape because I can’t seem to prove to anyone that I mean what I say. That I want you to live with me on the other side of this shore, far away from bridesmaids and sorority sisters, from shower games and wedding presents. We don’t need an avocado masher. We already have everything we require. Drawn thick, the border the shore represents snakes through our living room. Before and after the moment you asked me, or rather, no, not precisely, the charcoal smudge first appeared in the air when you opened the ring box, to make a present to me of your love. No doubt the trash blew to the lake’s edge from the overflowing refuse containers dotting the public path that winds around the water. When I say the other swan and I bathed loose, I meant I wanted to spin time back to a different world and be free. By free, I mean without constraint. But instead I believed what my mother told me years ago, that if I didn’t pledge, I would have no friends. And I did make friends, but I also met Dara, and kept her a secret. I wasn’t strong enough, or, I couldn’t find the edge to step off the world I inhabited.

As we drove on this morning, I could see how some of the bottles floated away from the shore. Tiny, toxic boats. I wonder if you and I could go back or if we’ve lost our chance. You are at times understanding, at other times easily insulted. I don’t know how you would react if I refused to wear the ring, turned up my nose at what the ring represents. The air conditioner blew a cold breeze from the vents, but the chill hung false around my shoulders, my neck. For once, I could name what for so long I had only felt. These journeys to plan our wedding—to the bakery, to the florist—were drawing a box around our life. Dara’s lips felt warm and good against mine when we made out on her bed that first time, as we slipped out of our T-shirts and jeans, and this morning, I pretended her swan cloak in my hands had meant something other than this world we’re building each time we swipe the credit card, order more flowers, sign up for a gift registry. When she broke up with me, she pinned my heart to a board. I lived in a glass case for a year after that, on display in a different way than I am now, messy and needy. Even the forest brought no comfort, the lake water brown and muddy, and sulky warm.

Like I said, it’s sweltering today. A wrong season upon us, record heat, but that’s outdoors. In here, again, this false cold. My armpits still drip. Beads of sweat snake down my underarms and crawl toward my elbows. Chilling me, and yes, I know that’s how sweat works. This morning I pulled on a cotton tank top, but you dressed in a neat, button-down shirt, so I changed into a blouse. Now the thin polyester fabric clings to my skin, prickling it. And the collar itches, the way the shirred cloth gathers around my neck. I scratch and scratch until even my blunt nails leave a red mark, and you give me a look. I want to scratch my scalp as well, near the crown, where the dry spots are. Elsewhere in the bakery, customers purchase baguettes, cupcakes, and order coffee, hot or iced. A woman passes, sees what we are doing, and no doubt spots the ring. Congratulations, she says. But not says, no, more like a chirp, her voice piercing and blister-bright. That voice digs into my side, winds through my lungs, sucks out all the air. There is hardly any space in here. I am so far away from any landscape that sustains me.

Also, I hate this blouse. I hate all blouses. I never should have changed. And why did I listen to my mother and pledge? All those young women, in light makeup, wearing J. Crew. Dara, on the other hand, had purple hair and wore black clothes and thick black eyeliner. Her friends didn’t take me seriously. Space falls in, around, on top of me, and narrows. I shouldn’t have agreed to this. We could get married in our garden instead. With just a few people as witnesses. Mother, family, maid-of-honor be damned. You’re the family I want. We could even go on as we have, without rings. Or I could run away to the forest entirely. You brush one hand through thick hair. Your blue eyes shine, two lights. I said yes because in that moment I didn’t think of what the yes would require. But now I do see. I don’t want to be asked to receive, to be gotten, to wear a symbol. To pretend our wedding day is the happiest of my life. No, I would rather float, light. All these trappings, they weigh around my collarbones, a necklace of heavy stones. Is it too late to back out? Are all of our deposits refundable? Is it all right to wish for more than one thing at the same time? To say yes to the dailyness of love, but no to the artifice, the codifying of it. Above all, would you believe me when I tell you what I want? If I do tell you, once and for all, and you don’t believe, I fear I’ll have to put you in the glass case. And I don’t want to do that. I love you, it’s only—I have questions.

The chocolate raspberry cake is a big hit with you. Maybe all hunters like sweet things. You throw your tiny plastic fork—pastel pink—in the small receptacle sitting squat on the middle of the tabletop. The lady insists we use a fresh fork for each sample, so as not to mix the flavors. I can tell we’re going to have trouble deciding, but the lady assures us we can have two cakes. Lots of couples do, she says, and I join a line of brides marching up aisles, swathed in clouds of white, hair done up to accommodate our gauzy veils, makeup applied with expertise, but chaste and soft, flesh-toned, see, we’re not tarts, take me, I’m demure, blushing. Swans, though, have strong wings and guard their nests. My nest is a hiding place, deep and fleshy. The next cake sample is white with a thin spread of lemon curd between the layers. This one actually tastes good. Tart and sweet instead of sweet alone. But then, all the same, the sugary aftertaste. Still, I nod, but you screw up your face. I don’t make a deal about it.

Some mornings, before the sun is high, when I drive by the lake on my way to work in the frigid office with the air vent directly above my desk, there are men and women in ragged jeans and bright orange safety vests picking trash from the edge of the lake. All those bottles and wrappers, choked by weeds. The lake tries to fight back, but the wind will blow again, and more garbage will settle in place. The trash collectors carry long sticks with pointy ends, which they use to spear the refuse in order to lift their dirty prizes into waiting plastic sacks. One day I watched as one of the workers pulled a small clear bottle, also plastic, from the back of his jeans. It must have been hot outside, but I couldn’t feel the pressing heat, again because of the air conditioner. So much plastic, I thought. All over, where it doesn’t belong. I remember wondering if the swans ever choked on crinkly wrappers or firm, round bottle caps.

I know there was a time before this. There I was, stepping out of my downy feathers. I lay my cloak across a wide, heavy rock and felt warm wind on my neck, how it blew through the tangled strands of my hair. I wasn’t tentative. I didn’t merely dip my toe in the lake, to test the temperature of the water. No. I waded right in, all the way up to my waist, and then did a little dive. Yes, I submerged, light, all the way down through the realm of the water, away from the troubling land, full of rules I couldn’t understand enough to follow. But it is trouble I returned to. When my head broke the surface of the water once more, as I dug my feet into the silty bottom of the lake to stand tall on my two feet, my swan sisters were there, floating a little ways apart from me, blocking me from retreating into deeper water. Then I saw you. There you stoodstood, having made your way through the lush wood with

ring in its velvet box, past the gnarled trunks of ancient trees, all the way to the lake’s edge. Your skin shone the dusky color of the lichen you touched on your way here and this, I think, is why I ignored your hunter guise. Why the bristly feather stuck at a jaunty angle in the brim of your cap failed to startle me. But I could hear one or two of my sisters whispering trills of delight. Their voices slipped through the reeds lining the edge of the lake. Soft, supple hisses. Each hiss delivered a sort of promise, proffered and demanded. This is who you are. This pairing is your purpose. This hunter is the one who will raise you up.

The final cake sample is chocolate with ganache filling. As I swallow the obligatory bite, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. The bakery hums with noise and light. More baguettes sold, dozens of cupcakes. The miniature desserts sit snugly in the display case in their pastel, crinkled cups under mountains of buttercream in every flavor and color. Creamy tan and drizzled with caramel. Rich, dark brown, whole mouthfuls of chocolate ganache, just like this cake sample making its way down my gullet. A woman orders an iced coffee and receives it in a disposable cup, the outside beaded with moisture. The man behind her orders an espresso. The cup is paper and tiny, and the white plastic cover appears almost to overwhelm it. You and the bakery lady, I realize now, are going on about how fantastic the ganache tastes, how sweet and luxurious. The bell on the door rings again and two more customers enter. It’s true. Customers have arrived and left in a steady stream the entire time we have been here. And despite the distance between us and them—we are settled comfortably a little ways from the counter at a table near a large plate glass window—they loom large in my mind. Here, as I am before them, wearing my ring, on display. The marching line of white-tufted brides swells once more in my mind. The accompanying music chokes me. All those faces, swiveling toward me as soon as I enter the church. Necks craned at this particular sight. I shrivel now, here under this imaginary glare. I am neither swan nor woman today. Or, I am trying somehow, but without knowing what that means. Really, I am someone I barely recognize, legs tucked under this square table, dressed in my blouse and my brilliant, shining ring.

Dara is married now. She and her wife have two children and a mortgage. Back when we were together, we would go jogging along dark paths in the early morning. That year, there was a memorable heat wave, but perhaps neither one of us understood the heat still on its way. Now I think about all the ways there are to be woman. Swan. I see those other women sometimes, at restaurants when I meet college friends. They seem less glamorous than

my friends somehow, and yet more solid. They have tattoos and interesting haircuts. Their clothes don’t look the same, nor do their husbands or wives. Did you know you didn’t have to be a hunter? I imagine driving by the lake again, but this time with the air conditioner off and the windows rolled all the way down. In the wide field of my mind, we pull over and climb out. We stretch our legs and move toward the water’s edge. The garbage has disappeared. Together we watch the swans. Then we give each other a look—we don’t even have to talk about what we’re going to do next—and, moving as one, we slip the ring from my finger. I hand it to you. Your arm is longer than mine, your muscles stronger. In a wide arc the ring soars above the water as soon as you release it. One brilliant throw. I imagine I can hear metal and diamond make a tiny splash as the object hits the water. My chest opens and my lungs fill with air. I feel lighter as the ring sinks to the bottom. Now I sigh, still in the bakery. I can’t anymore. I have to tell you how I feel. Oh, how elegant swans are, and no doubt articulate in their human forms, at least when at home in their forests, swimming in the fresh blue waters of their clean-stretching lakes. But me, no, I’m still sticky beneath the cloth of my blouse. I wish I had spit the chocolate ganache out of my mouth. To stop consuming this world I don’t want. I check my watch, but in secret. How long have we been here? You want us to make a decision about the cakes. The bakery lady waits, patient in her pinstriped smock.

I want the white cake with lemon curd. I want no cake at all. I want to slip out of this blouse and ring and root through the hunting lodge until I find my soft, feathered cloak. The one you hid, or didn’t hide, or did only because you were told to. I want lots of things, all at once. There must be other ways. Paths leading away from the lodge. To the lake, but a new one, a body of water we form together as we make our way through the forest. Look. You bow your head to move below an overhanging branch and I offer to hold your cap. The one with the feather on its brim. Once I take the cloth thing from you, it disappears in my hands. Look, I say again, this time out loud. Showing you. See how the webbing grows. Perhaps webbing forms between your fingers as well. Hard to see in this comforting shade. But the body exists always in multiple states. Skin, fresh and clean. Sheets of tiny cells, as passages. All the cake dissolves in my hands as well. I do not want the chocolate ganache, or the chocolate with raspberry filling, or the hazelnut cream cake, nor even the lemon curd. No, I want to wild and grow, to swim in the cool lake.

Something in me has been born. It’s so hot today. I rise up. Thick through this air. I no longer care who believes me when I tell them I don’t want this. If they don’t, I’ll fly away and leave them behind. My mother with her seating chart, her wedding planners. My friends who insist I should get on a plane with them wearing a sash that reads: Bachelorette. The lake lingers, or not the lake, but some other, equal place. Now, more than ever before, I am convinced you could join me. Our garden waits. I can show you who I am. That little stone bench under the shade. We could sit side by side, passing an hour or two as the sun travels across the sky, high above our heads. This cloak of feathers, I’ll tell you, isn’t merely a wrapping, it’s a true form. Together, soon, I’m sure of it, we’ll leave this bakery and make our way back to your car parked down the street, snug to the curb. The garden waits. Now all my forms unfold from the great cavern of my chest. Woman, swan, wild-tame, tame-wild, and all the shapes in between. Let’s talk about it, I say. As in, I cannot give an answer about cake today. As in, I may never be able to give an answer about cake.

The edge of this world forms, a shimmering line. We could step off together. I cannot read the expression on your face, but I hope what I make out is an opening door. As for the bakery lady, she flashes visible disappointment before regaining her composure. I ignore her. Instead I float behind you through the door into the heat-wispy outdoors, between now and the future we step into, the outlines unclear. I have to find you as I am, as woman and swan. Though I am many, I do not obey one form over another.