The List by Anna Linetskaya
“Melting ice cream tubs, an empty carton of milk, candy wrappers and torn packets of snacks scattered like confetti”
Fiction by Anna Linetskaya
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Wedel Torte, the cake from Lidia’s childhood, with flaky waffles and creamy chocolate filling, was looking back at her from the store’s placard. Lidia left her trolly and came closer to the promo stand. Here it was, the cake — a whole bunch of them — wrapped in colorful cellophane sheets and stacked in neat rows underneath the display. Lidia imagined slicing the cake, the crisp crunch of the wafers surrendering to the pressure of the knife, the goo of ganache soft against its edges. Once, when she was slicing a cake just like that, her mother showed her an old, dog-eared photo. On it, Lidia’s grandmother was performing the same ritual. A 30-something version of a woman Lidia never got to meet, her grandmother’s bulky body leaned against the table, a smear of chocolate already on her round face.
Lidia tried to imagine the taste of the cake, how it would melt on her tongue, but that was where the spell lost its power; her stomach remained quiet, her mouth remained dry. She liked the cake, but she knew she had no appetite for it. She knew the yearning she was beginning to feel was of a different kind.
No. Not today. Stick to the list.
Lidia returned to the trolley and pushed it further down the aisle, in the direction of the produce section. The recipe she decided to make called for a long list of ingredients: avocados, dried red chili, chive, sweet onions, cream. Lidia stopped and studied the signs above her head; although she knew the layout of the store well, her regular shopping rarely took her as far as fresh produce. A square of cheese; a pack of saltines; a 6-pack of store-brand diet soda. Lidia rarely cooked these days; rather, she preferred simple things and small quantities.
It was Lidia’s mother who emailed her the recipe: an avocado fettuccine with a twist. She must have done it as a favor to the manicurist from her beauty parlor, the one who just started to run his own food and beauty blog. Lidia always wondered how those women — and now, apparently, men — managed to shop, chop, snap, and write stories (often, really good ones) about something so demanding as a meal prep. She, for one, would never be able to turn something so heavy as a pasta dish into an elegant tale.
That’s where she differed greatly from her deceased grandmother, who left another legacy in addition to her photos: a box of lengthy notes that documented all the meals the woman had ever made and eaten; the avocado fettuccine felt decadent enough to be from there. Lidia wished she could check whether it was only a coincidence but, as with most things material, her mother left the notes back in Brooklyn. Just to think they could still be there, on Brighton & 5th, living in their old apartment two blocks away from the ocean. What would have become of them then?
Here, in Albuquerque, the present scenario seemed like the only one possible. Her mother, in the beauty parlor; her, in the community college housing; her father, in the body shop back in New York. Lidia tried to hold on to those memories that kept getting away from her, yet her mother insisted it was Lidia who tried to get away from the world, who wanted to get lost in her thoughts and obsessions. But was she really getting lost? Was there a better way to describe how she felt? What if she was not lost, but simply needed this feeling to—
“Excuse me, do you need help finding anything?”
Snap out of it. Focus.
Lidia was still in the wafer cake aisle; she must have idled long enough to attract attention of the sales assistant. A stout woman in her mid-50s approached Lidia, a tired smile of a seasoned employee amplifying her wrinkles. Her stare made Lidia uneasy: it could not have been longer than a couple of minutes, and yet, already, Lidia felt like she was doing something wrong. What did that woman see in her? A shoplifter? Unlikely; with a neatly buttoned cardigan and her auburn hair tucked away in a tight bun, Lidia’s rod-like body presented little threat. Some other kind of nuisance then? Perhaps the woman saw what Lidia’s mother always saw: a young girl who takes too much time to give a simple answer, who flounders when she should be moving through her life with purpose and pizzazz.
“Well. Let’s see.” The sales assistant leaned over the empty trolley, trying to get a better view of the list of ingredients Lidia had placed on the fold-out holder.
“Sweet onions are Aisle 9, love, just to the left of the fruit stand,” the woman said, placing her hand on Lidia’s back. Lidia tensed under the unwelcome touch.
“Oh, my…,” the woman’s eyes said as her fingers brushed against the sharp blade of Lidia’s shoulder. Then, in words: “Well, you sure could use some pie! We carry good, home-made ones next to the deli section. Why don’t you check it out on your way to the register?” The woman forced another smile and pushed the trolley forward.
A hot wave of frustration ran over Lidia as she tugged alone. The freedom with which people said those things; the liberty with which they touched her shoulders, felt her wrists… At least, when her mother did those things Lidia understood: her grandmother’s voluptuous body put a curse on the woman, a hex that morphed into an obsession over the years. But this was different: while her mother kept checking Lidia for feared — by now, completely illusory — excesses as she compared her to her grandmother’s ghost, strangers acted with no point of reference other than their own judgment. As if Lidia’s body turned into a public property and invited comment simply by the fact of being frail.
It was through interactions like this that Lidia came to believe she carried the same weight as her grandmother, only in reverse. Which, in a sense, was worse: Lidia had no flesh to insulate her against their opinion, no substance on which to hang the “do not disturb” sign. She looked down at her prominent knuckles, white against the red handlebar of the trolley.
Do they really think I don’t know? A bitter clump formed at the back of her throat, as she kept pushing past the rows of ready-made soups. Do they think I don’t see?
No, she was well aware; maybe even more aware than necessary. Always the perceptive one, she learned from a young age what pleased and what disturbed the world around her. Through experimentation of her own, she developed ways to reach what she perceived to be a safe equilibrium. She learned how to eat without getting bigger, knew how to talk without saying much. With only one voice — her mother’s — permitted in their shrinking household, she failed to develop the right vocabulary to become her own advocate. Polite and well-mannered, just as her mother had envisioned, the only way for Lidia to speak up was to surround herself with people who could do that for her.
But, as the time went by, there were fewer and fewer people for Lidia to choose from. Her early childhood friendships dissolved when her mother moved the two of them to New Mexico; her subsequent attachments were fickle, and fell off easily as her body kept shrinking, from adolescent softness to slenderness to— well, to this. Her father never left them, but he hadn’t followed them, either: with his monthly calls from Brooklyn and yearly family gatherings in their summer house in Poconos, his presence was ephemeral, the very idea of him not worthy of trust. And Lidia’s mother, she was the woman who needed space and knew how to burn bridges to protect it. It was she who grew sick of their community after Lidia’s grandmother died; she who decided she would be better off on her own. Of course, she still cared about Lidia. She called her once a week, sent recipes and links to articles in Psychology and Jezebel. Yet, she was the one who chose to live in fear of her own mother’s body and, by extension, grew to loath that of her own and of her daughter.
Could Lidia ever forget that? She was supposed to believe she could. But was there anything else, another link between her and her mother? Another link, a healthy one — was Lidia trying to create exactly that by resolving to make the fettuccine? Was she challenging the two of them with the recipe, so they could sit down and face each other and the truth?
Lidia shook her head as she squeezed the handlebar tighter. None of her thoughts were going to change the way she felt, or the fact that she was as responsible as her mother for the creation of her misery, perhaps even more so. If she could only change her perspective on things… then she could claim her body as a statement, an outward reflection of her plight and perseverance. Yet, no matter how many times Lidia tried to reframe her thoughts, the insatiable black void continued to swirl at the core of her being. It was that void that demanded to be filled with understanding and affection, that made Lidia desperate to be close to others, regardless of the judgements they might pass. She wanted to understand people around her, to know how it felt to be them, and make them feel something in return. Yet, ever since they moved to Albuquerque, Lidia could not find a way to connect, as if she was made out of non-compatible material. Her wit came off rusty or, worse yet, acidic; her observations (the few she allowed herself to make), stale and obsolete. That’s why her relationships and friendships did not — could not — last. She was incapable of connecting, destined for dismissal. It was not the others’ fault, no one’s fault—
“—but you own,” her mother’s voice completed her thought.
Enough. Keep moving. Get on with the list.
Lidia maneuvered the trolley to the right; the metal wheels clacked on the tiles and the fold-out holder rattled as she pushed past the ‘Health’ section.
Think things. Particulars. Avocados. Chives. Sweet onions. Trolley with the holder.
Suddenly annoyed by the sound it was making, Lidia stopped and pulled the rattling holder shut; the list stuck in between the metal wires, the names of ingredients staring back at her. Even with a list like that, who could guarantee that Lidia would not turn away and leave? After all, would it be such a big deal — to abandon the trolley, to exit the store, to forget the recipe and her plan — given that abandonment was engraved into her very DNA?
No. No. Shut it. Stick with the list.
Lidia tucked the piece of paper deeper in between the wires and pushed the trolley forward. To leave would mean to give up on what she intended to do. It would mean proving her mother right yet again, the one thing she swore to avoid. She could not do that. But Lidia knew there was one thing worse than leaving: it was staying with indifference.
Lidia scanned the shelves around her: lines of cloying candy bags, rows of suffocating pasta boxes, liquids as toxic as their plastic jugs. She knew it was better to feel something: anger, pain, frustration— anything but numbness. Indifference was disabling. It was an act of sacrifice for those who felt it and an action of erasure for those on the receiving end.
That was exactly how Lidia felt around her father. While her mother pushed and pulled the boundaries of their family life in Brooklyn, the man simply existed alongside. He went to work; he brought his salary back home; he cooked his own meals; he never raised his voice as Lidia’s mother tested his limits. During the first eight years of Lidia’s life, her father’s passivity insulated the man; it also made him oblivious to her mother’s shifting mood. When Lidia’s mother announced her decision to relocate to New Mexico — the furthest place from Brooklyn she could think of — it came as a surprise to him. When he realized he wasn’t asked to come with, it turned into a relief.
Lidia never harbored an idealized notion of a father-daughter relationship; she’d heard and read enough to realize the treacherous nature of that bond. But while other girls complained about their fathers — too strict, too controlling; an abuser, a drunk — she didn’t have anything so concrete to claim as her own. Instead, she floated weightlessly in the orbit of her father’s disregard, an amorphous creature with only her mother to look to for direction.
The first summer they reunited as a family in their house in the Poconos was the year after their move to Albuquerque. Lidia was nine and her face still carried some of its Brooklyn roundness; “Chipmunk,” her mother kept pointing it out. Aside from that new remark, the time apart did not alter the familial dynamics. Her mother occupied the bedroom and spent all of her time on the phone, checking on her recently opened beauty salon back in New Mexico. Her father confined himself to the kitchen; that summer, it was onions and pork links he kept frying and eating as the weeks went by. Lidia, on her part, began to play the game of disappearance. Whenever possible, she made sure to disappear from her parents’ sight: her father’s, that of a man not interested; her mother’s, that of a woman annoyed.
It was in that Poconos house, the day after her father left for New York, that Lidia stumbled upon her mother’s way of coping for the first time. Why did Lidia return home that early? She could no longer recall. She did not expect her mother to be in. She did not expect to find the kitchen counter covered in crumbs. Melting ice cream tubs, an empty carton of milk, candy wrappers and torn packets of snacks scattered like confetti across the tabletop. It was the half-finished jar of guacamole that must have done the coloring trick.
“Get out!” her mother’s yell burst through all those years as Lidia watched herself push the bathroom door open. She stood still as the woman continued to yell, her chin still covered with the film of greenish slime.
Lidia looked at the tile underneath the trolley: same squares, same dirty grout. It must have been on that day in that bathroom that Lidia began to envy her father’s indifference and resolved to imitate it the best way she could. She stopped asking why her mother always ate alone and never kept any extra food in the fridge. She made sure not to return from school before dusk. When she talked to her father over the phone, she kept repeating everything was fine, confident that no-one needed to hear the rest. She stopped asking whether they would ever move back to Brooklyn.
Onions and avocados. Could she — either one of them — handle the truth?
Lidia stopped the trolley and counted her breaths to steady herself: two slow counts in; four slow counts out. Fourteen slow years since her father was gone from her life; thirteen slow years since she swore she’d never become like her mother. Yet, despite all the practiced inhales and exhales and the years they amounted to, Lidia was still hungry for the family that could have been. Time had proven to be a shitty healer, and an even bigger sucker as a nurturer.
Lidia unclasped her fingers from the handlebar and cupped them in front of her mouth: the damp air of the produce stalls had finally reached her. She pulled her cardigan tighter: here they were, the bright green rows of lettuce heads and collard greens, two aisles down, right past the liquor shelf. Lidia could see the crate of onions from where she stood: yellow, white, purple, round and oval, large and tiny ones. Another sight reached her from the depth of her mind: the fetid bulbs already dissected, the glistening ribbons disappearing into her father’s mustached face.
Lidia felt nausea rising to her throat; a wave of exhaustion washed over her body. Suddenly, the whole idea of preparing the dinner seemed ridiculous. Once again, she sabotaged herself, volunteered to be a part of something she so badly wanted but knew she could not have. Why do I do this? Why do I still try? Her thoughts sounded like a broken record: she had been here before; worse yet, deep down she knew the answers to those questions.
The tingles of adrenalin spread through her fingertips. Who was she kidding? What was there to want? All that truth talk, all of that was bullshit; no-one wanted to remember it but her. She turned away from the onions and looked back at the liquor shelf. Her mother, her father— unrelenting, they would continue to exist in their fucked up ways, in her past, in her present, and in her future. How could she forget that fact? How could she forget that alone was enough to justify what she was about to do?
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The constant mulling over: that was how. Ever since Lidia moved to the college dorms and began to see the school-appointed therapist, the recollections of her past started to lose their sting. The more she talked about her childhood and her parents, the less justification she found for her persisting feelings: anxiety, desperation, guilt. Every word she uttered during those sessions broke down her traumas into smaller pieces, making them petty and insignificant, turning her plight into a story of an ordinary life.
But that wasn’t what she wanted; that wasn’t something she knew how to handle. Lidia missed the burning sensation of suppressed anger in her gut, the impossible-to-satisfy desire for salvation. The continuous dissection of her worries deprived her of the yearning that used to justify her life as a martyr and her reason to pour another glass. If she were to feel it again, the tales she spun from her therapist’s couch had to be replaced with rage, even if for a day.
The opportunity presented itself when Lidia’s mother sent her the recipe. Her mother who did not eat, Lidia who did not cook: the indignation Lidia felt upon seeing the message served as a perfect fuel. Fired up, she could no longer ignore the email; against her mother’s expectations, she resolved to look up the recipe and to write out the ingredients. She resolved to invite her troubled mother to her dorms to share the meal.
By the time Lidia clicked on the link, her narrative had return to its old, familiar cadence. Her mother… her father… avocados… avocado’s flesh. She knew she was setting up a perfect torture for herself, the one enough to justify any of her cravings.
Lidia felt the first pang of pain as she wrote out the ingredients. She took her time with the list, grouped the items. Then, she drove to the store— a perfect place for her to unravel. The wafer cake unleashed the wind; the sales assistant’s touch was lightning; her father and sweet onions ushered the first thunder; and then, the downpour began. She welcomed the mudslide of emotions. The essence of her troubled life: how could she ever think that wouldn’t be enough?
******
Emboldened by the thought, Lidia took a step forward; the familiar abyss opened underneath her feet as she reached towards the shining glass.
“Ma-am, did you forget your paper…?”
A man’s voice reached Lidia as she began to slip towards the register, away from the abandoned trolley. She did not turn around; instead, she bowed her head and clasped her fingers tighter around the bottle’s neck. The whiskey swooshed as Lidia kept thinking:
Enough. Keep moving.
Fuck them. Fuck her.
You deserve this.
Fuck the list.
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Header image courtesy of Theo Gosselin. To view his photo essay, "Vagabonds," go here.
Anna Linetskaya is an emerging writer who, after years of academic work and legal practice, finally finds herself writing pieces she truly enjoys. While working towards her MFA in Creative Writing at the City College of New York, she has completed her first full-length manuscript, for which she received the Jerome Lowell Dejur Prize in Creative Writing. Her shorter pieces appeared in Visitant Lit, The Writing Disorder, The Airgonaut, and elsewhere; her nonfiction was long-listed for Cosmonaut Avenue’s 2019 Nonfiction Prize. Visit her author page at www.linetskaya.com to learn more.
