Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman

by Alice Mattison

  Daphne had left the rehearsal early. Ellen said Cindy was sleeping over at her house and added her to our group. As we were walking to the car, a little sweaty, Ellen said quietly, “It’s all right not to tell me. I like secrets—I mean, secrets I don’t know. I know you have a secret, and I’ll help you own it, even though you don’t want to talk to me about it. You can lie to me, too, you know. I don’t mind lies.”

  “My friend Charlotte can’t stand it when I lie.” I laughed and looked at her more frankly than I had in the past.

  “That kind of friend is useful too,” she said.

  I dropped them off and drove home. Arthur met me at the door. As I had the night I came home from New York, I heard voices, but these were the voices of a man and a woman. Daphne and Pekko were sitting in our kitchen, Daphne looking small and accused on the big sofa, clutching a glass of what looked like water, Pekko at the table with his own glass. “I’m sorry,” Daphne said when she saw me. “I meant to be gone by the time you got home. How was the rest of the rehearsal?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “It better be okay. The performance is in a month.”

  “More than a month.” Mid-October, after the conference.

  Daphne stood. “I guess we’ve said all we have to say, Pekko,” she said.

  Pekko stood too but said nothing. I stood in the doorway, my hand playing with Arthur’s curls. I took a step toward the hook where the leash hung. I’d walk him, so I wouldn’t have to find out what Daphne and Pekko had been discussing, and so I could be alone for the first time in hours, persuading myself that more times with Gordon would come.

  So I reached toward the leash, and Arthur was starting to wag, when Pekko said, “Wait.” He raised his hand and let it fall. “Wait, Daisy.”

  “What?” I said, and he didn’t answer.

  Daphne said, “I tried to be fair. But he’s not listening.” She wore a skimpy tank top that wrinkled over her flat chest, and shorts that were quite short, though the weather was cool. Daphne never wore bright colors, and her clothes often seemed chosen to match her

  no-color hair, yet there was something appealing about her. “I want results,” she said. “I want results that already happened.”

  “You want what nobody can give you, Daphne,” Pekko said. “Free rent—”

  “I said I’d earn it.”

  “You can’t earn it. You think you know what you’re doing, but you don’t.”

  “Look, I’m going,” Daphne said. “That isn’t the important part, anyway. The important part is the condition of the building.”

  She walked toward the door, and neither of us followed her. Then she turned and said, “Just so you know, Daisy. We’re having a rent strike, starting tomorrow. Nobody’s paid the September rent, and nobody’s going to. We’ll be picketing this house in the morning. The Register’s covering it, and maybe the Advocate and Channel 8.”

  Arthur saw her to the door. She left it open, and I followed her to close it, then returned to Pekko in the kitchen. He was still sitting, drawn up to the table as if to eat a meal. As so often, I was looking at his back. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m a slumlord. That’s what they’re going to say. All over the paper.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Of course I’m not.”

  I sat down and put my hand on his big, muscular arm with its gray hairs. “But, Pekko,” I said. “What she wants— Can’t you do some of what she wants?”

  “Which puts her in the driver’s seat. Which lets her say I admit I’m a slumlord.”

  “Nobody will take it that seriously. There’s a lot wrong with that building. You could send in a crew tomorrow. There’s bad plumbing. Bugs.”

  “I’m not a slumlord, Daisy.”

  “I know what you’re doing. You’re stretching yourself thin so you can take care of all these people. Daphne. Edmund. Is Edmund living in that building?”

  “He just needs a base there, so he can help his parents. Please don’t tell anybody. Did Daphne tell you?”

  “I happened to see him there.”

  “You were there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was there. I wanted to see for myself.”

  He pushed his chair back, so he was farther away from me. “And what did you think?”

  I stood up. There were a few dishes on the drainboard, and I began putting them in the cupboard to give my hands something to do. “I didn’t like what I saw. You’re not a slumlord, but you seem like one. How do you expect people to understand what you’re doing? You make no effort to explain yourself. And I think you could do a little better. You don’t have a lot of money, but you can fix the place up a little better than that.”

  He didn’t say anything. There was a tiny nod, as if to acknowledge the answer to a question. “She’s organized my other buildings,” he said.

  “I don’t even know how many buildings you own,” I said then.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Well, four. You didn’t know it was four?”

  “I suppose I could have figured it out.”

  “You don’t seem like my wife, Daisy,” he said. He stood up, slapped his knees, and began to leave the room.

  I was enraged. “I don’t seem like your wife! How can I sympathize with you? You never say anything. You are secrets piled upon secrets. You know who committed a murder twenty-five years ago, and you don’t go to the cops—you have no—”

  “You’re not going to the cops, are you?” He turned faster than I’d have thought he could move.

  “Of course not. Of course not—if you don’t—” I said. “But why is it a secret he lives in your house? If he does? If nobody knows, why can’t he just stay anywhere, like anybody?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I know it’s important to him.”

  “I don’t believe that’s the whole story,” I said.

  “Sometimes you have to trust me. Why did you marry me,” he said, “if you don’t trust me?”

  I stopped shouting. I put the plate in my hand on the table, as if I were setting the table, and then I sat down at my place and said nothing more.

  Never being alone means you are part of what you didn’t agree to and responsible for what you didn’t do. I knew why I married Pekko. I’d always liked sex with him. I recognized his goodness. I was titillated by his mysteries. I felt huge affection for him, when I wasn’t exasperated. But I didn’t marry him in the way my mother married my father. I didn’t open a joint account with him—not at the bank, not metaphorically either. After a while I stopped sitting there and went to bed. I didn’t walk Arthur, but Pekko did. He came in late, and I woke for only a moment when he got into bed.

  In the morning, Pekko was not in bed. I lay listening. When I came downstairs in my robe, he was filling the coffeepot. “Are they here?” I said.

  “They’re here.” He was dressed and had brought in the Times.

  I went to the window. In front of our narrow Goatville house, on our undistinguished street, three women—one small white woman who, when she turned, was Daphne, two black women, one big, one small—walked wearily back and forth on the sidewalk. Daphne held a poster in her hands. I couldn’t make out the words.

  “They look tired already,” I said.

  “They got up early.”

  “How long have they been here?”

  “Six or so.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “There’s nothing to do.”

  While we ate breakfast, a reporter called. I answered the phone and handed it to Pekko, then listened as he refused to comment.

  “I can’t stand that,” I said, as he hung up.

  “What?”

  “You want me to behave like your wife. All right. As your wife, I object to your saying nothing.”

  “If I don’t want to be quoted, it’s a good idea to say nothing.”

  “They’ll say you refused to talk. Call her back and say something.”
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br />   “What? What do you want me to say?” he said, pushing away his coffee cup and standing. “I’m going to the office.”

  “Are they picketing that, too?”

  “I suppose.”

  All I wanted then was to stop him. I put down my bagel and cup of coffee, and stood, putting my arms around him, holding him so he couldn’t leave.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I love you.”

  “I know,” said Pekko. “I love you, too. But let me do what I have to do.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  He wrested himself from my arms. “Look. In a city like this, if all the apartments are beautiful, a lot of folks will be homeless. I do what I can.”

  “Can’t you tell them that?”

  “No. I can’t. Partly because I don’t want anybody looking over my books—and partly because I don’t want anybody looking at Edmund, thinking about Edmund, noticing Edmund.”

  “But why should they?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sorry I told you about him, and I’m not going to talk to any media people and take any more chances, whether that makes sense to you or not.”

  Pekko drummed his knuckles on the table vigorously, and Arthur thrust his head into his lap. “Daisy,” he finally said, his voice sounding odd, with less resonance than usual, “will you come with me?”

  I almost said no. I had two appointments that morning, and I had hoped to get through them quickly so as to go to Gordon’s office, because I had plenty to do, and because I was always hoping for more with Gordon—more sex, more fighting, more disappointment, more anything. And I don’t believe in agreeing to do what you don’t want to do. I could make lengthy arguments having to do with the uselessness of unwilling sacrifice, even when it’s small. And there’s my habit of doing right every other time. Or, better, my belief that I’m half good. I thought Pekko should fix up his houses. I thought he probably should have gone to the police about Edmund, so even if it happened to be one of my good moments, I wasn’t sure I should stand by his side in this instance. I didn’t quite respect his decisions, even when I didn’t think them morally suspect. I thought he could limit the charity and look after his image.

  But sometimes one is given a little extra breath, and that time, air filled my lungs. “Of course,” I said, and we grabbed each other. I ran upstairs and dressed quickly. Leaving the breakfast things on the table, though I knew Arthur would nose them for crumbs, possibly until they fell and shattered, we went outside, avoiding the pickets, and got into my car (I wasn’t going to be a passenger, even now) and drove—mostly silently—to Pekko’s office on Whalley Avenue. I passed it, looking for a parking place, and saw three men walking back and forth outside, clutching hand-lettered poster board. slumlord read their placards. A few people had stopped to look at the men. We parked a block away and walked back. “Will Henrietta be there?” I asked. His secretary often opened the office.

  “I called her last night and told her to take the day off.”

  I hadn’t been in Pekko’s storefront realty office for a long time and noticed that it had been improved, with plants in the windows. Most of his income-producing business was in renting low- to middle-rent apartments owned and managed by others. He also managed several buildings. The ones he owned, though they seemed to receive most of his attention, didn’t take up most of his time. Only now did I think about the harm Daphne and her buddies could do him. People in the neighborhood would think he was preying on the poor. Landlords would be less likely to list with him, tenants less likely to inquire. He could lose management contracts. Pekko served on the boards of a soup kitchen and a drug treatment facility. He was what Charlotte once called “a noble businessman.” He snarled when praised for charity of any sort, but he valued his good reputation.

  Now he ignored the pickets and ignored the stir that occurred when he took his keys from his pocket and picked up the newspaper. We opened the building. It was cool inside, cooler than outdoors—it was one of those September days that would become warmer and warmer, until the afternoon was pretty hot. Indoors, you’d want a long-sleeved shirt all day. “What are we going to do?” I said.

  “There’s plenty. I thought maybe you’d answer the phone.”

  “So you want to act as if those people aren’t there?”

  “What else could I do?”

  “We could talk to them. We could negotiate. We could call up the press and give our side. We could arrange for repairs.”

  “I’ve got a schedule for repairs. I get to them when I can.”

  “And if they put you out of business?”

  “There are other businesses. People who know me, know what I’m like.”

  “You’re just talking tough,” I said. “You’re not going to like what happens. You wouldn’t have asked me to come if you didn’t want me to make a difference. If I’m going to be here, I want work that will make some difference.”

  Pekko shrugged. He had sat down at his desk and was looking at a paper on it. He didn’t seem to have heard me. Then he said, “Do whatever you want.”

  So I started making phone calls, which is what I like. I called everybody I could think of. I called Gordon. “This is Daisy.”

  “Yes.”

  “What would you do if you wanted a favorable newspaper story?”

  “What does this have to do with?”

  “Pekko’s business.”

  “Such as it is. I’d do something that could be photographed.” The pickets were doing that already. The buildings themselves could be photographed. I tried to stop myself from thinking about “such as it is.” I was glad I’d called him because what he said was smart, but I was sorry I called because it wasn’t helpful, and I’d taken a risk.

  I called Charlotte at work. “Are you speaking to me?”

  “Of course! Wait.” She could be heard excusing herself. “What is it?”

  I told her the story, and she was aghast to hear of picket lines. “He’s not a slumlord. This is idiotic.” I didn’t tell her I couldn’t summon quite so much loyalty as that. She’d scold again. She offered to put together a second line of positive pickets. “Do whatever you want,” I said, repeating Pekko’s words. But she couldn’t do it for a day or two.

  I went on calling friends and acquaintances, almost anyone at all. In between calls I watered the plants and picked off withered leaves. Then I’d think of someone else to call and do that. Everyone was interested, but nobody made an offer except Charlotte, who couldn’t help right away.

  “How long can you last without rent?” I said at one point.

  “I need it to pay the mortgages,” Pekko said. “I don’t have money lying around.”

  I did answer a few calls that morning, but of course I didn’t know what to say, so I’d immediately put Pekko on the line. What I most wanted to do—invite the pickets inside, find out exactly what they were demanding, and figure out how to do some of it—was not allowed.

  I know what I’m like when I’m not accomplishing anything, and after an hour I began to recognize that woman—Daisy Pointless, she was called. It was too early to offer to go for sandwiches. Pekko stayed on the phone, giving orders having to do with garbage pickup, somebody’s check, and a maintenance man’s days off. “Pretty good,” he said over and over—his invariable answer to “How are you?”

  I couldn’t think. I’d never worked in a storefront office, and I’d have felt exposed to the street even if pickets condemning my husband—the same three bored-looking gentlemen—had not been walking back and forth on the sidewalk. They ignored us, but passersby looked in curiously. Pekko was obviously used to scratching his nose and hitching up his pants in public.

  Pekko’s and Henrietta’s desks faced the street on either side of the room, while several chairs, against each side wall, made up an informal waiting room. Behind the desks were file cabinets and odds and ends that I supposed came from houses Pekko owned or cared for: a lawn mower, a battered bank of mailboxes, several la
dders and paint rollers. I’d been here, meeting Pekko or stopping with him to get something, but I’d never spent time here. I walked to the back of the building. A narrow corridor in the middle of the back wall led to a small bathroom, a closet full of leases, receipt forms, and other papers, and then a storeroom at the back. In the storeroom was some dilapidated furniture—a few kitchen chairs, a TV stand—and I sat down. A back window looked out on a Dumpster.

  I was sure I could feel Pekko’s relief when I left the room. The air in the building circulated more freely. Would he be better off without me, altogether? I had continued to love and want Pekko all spring and summer—I hadn’t wanted to leave him—and I didn’t that morning either. But I thought maybe I ought to. I speculated whether this rent strike was just some large expression of sexual tension between him and Daphne, and I tried to decide whether the solution was simply for them to crawl into a bed somewhere.

  But the night before, Pekko had wanted me, not Daphne, in the house and in the room with him. He had asked me not to walk Arthur, to stay. And this morning, he’d asked me to come with him. I just needed to know what I was supposed to do for him now. The room I was in had a back door as well, and I opened it and stepped outside into the warm air. There was nothing to do behind a Whalley Avenue building surrounded by similar backs of buildings. I walked back and forth, now thinking not of Pekko but of Gordon, who had sniffed at the idea that Pekko had a business at all. When I thought of Pekko again, I wondered if what I owed him was a confession, and I almost laughed at that idea. The last thing he needed was the pain of learning what I’d done and hoped to continue to do. You need to be a lot purer than I to achieve anything by confessing. I decided at last that all I could do for Pekko was to be present—that was what he’d requested—and it was an odd decision for me. I assume I’m useless as I am but useful for what I do. Pekko seemed to need me to be useful as I am.