“All right, now,” Mr. Laskey said as the waitress put an enormous hot fudge sundae in front of Alice. “Does everybody have what he or she wishes? Is everybody happy?”
“You bet, pal,” Janey said.
“Jane,” Mr. Laskey said. “Are we having some kind of problem today?”
Janey held his gaze for a moment and then looked away. “No,” she said.
“You’re sure,” Mr. Laskey said.
“Yes,” Janey said.
“Because,” Mr. Laskey said, “if there is a problem, maybe you’d like to tell me what it is so we can clear it up right now.”
“There isn’t,” Janey said.
“Isn’t what?” Mr. Laskey said.
“Isn’t a problem,” Janey said.
“What was that?” Mr. Laskey said. “I didn’t hear you.”
For a moment Janey didn’t speak. “There isn’t a problem,” she said finally, in a low, dead voice.
“That’s my girl,” Mr. Laskey said. “All problems forgotten. Now—” He looked at his watch. “We’ll go back to the hotel for a three o’clock nap, then we’ll get up at five-thirty, and at six forty-five we’ll have had our baths and be ready to go. Everybody with me?”
“I’m with you,” Janey said. “You mean we have to have a two-and-a-half-hour nap.”
“Aha,” Mr. Laskey said. “Another mathematician in the family.”
“A two-and-a-half-hour nap?” Janey said.
“No!” Alice said in alarm. “It’s ideal!”
“You’re confused, Alice,” Janey said.
“On the contrary,” Mr. Laskey said. “Do you know what an adult is? Jane? An adult is someone who’s learned to delay gratification. We’re going to the ballet tonight, and we’re going to have a very late night. In short, this is non-negotiable. But the question is, we have time for one quick activity before our nap, so what do we all want to do?”
“We all want to go to the children’s zoo,” Alice said.
“We all want to go to the Museum of the American Indian,” Janey said.
“Kyla?” Mr. Laskey said.
“Either’s fine with me,” Kyla said. She just wanted to go home.
“Well,” Mr. Laskey said, “we were just at the Museum of the American Indian yesterday. Besides, it’s very, very far away—I’m afraid it’s impracticable.”
“It’s only one-thirty,” Janey said. “We have time.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Mr. Laskey said.
“But it’s only one-thirty,” Janey said.
“I think we all heard you,” Mr. Laskey said. “And I said, let me be the judge of that.”
“Children’s zoo, children’s zoo,” Alice chanted.
Mr. Laskey peered at Alice. “Are those dark circles I see?” he said. “Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
“No,” Alice said nonchalantly.
Mr. Laskey looked at Janey. “What does she mean?” he said.
Janey and Kyla looked at each other. “She had nightmares,” Janey said. “She kept me and Kyla awake all night.”
“Is this true?” Mr. Laskey said.
“Janey wouldn’t let me call mommy,” Alice said.
“Did you want to wake mommy up?” Janey said fiercely. “Is that what you wanted, Alice?”
Alice hung her head, and large tears began to form in her eyes. “No,” she said in a little voice. Though actually, Kyla thought, Janey was no mathematician at all—it wouldn’t have been much past ten at home when Alice first woke them.
“What upset you, Alice?” Mr. Laskey said. “Was it the museum yesterday? Was it the Indians?”
“You weren’t there,” Alice said. Her shoulders were bowed and she stared at her melting sundae, tears sliding from her wide eyes. “The pond was there, and ice was on it, and it opened up, and you were thin air.”
“I’m here, sweetheart. It was just a nightmare. I’m right here.”
“That’s what I told her,” Janey said. “I told her it wasn’t real.”
“I was—” Mr. Laskey began. Then he looked at the wall, as if something had suddenly appeared there. “Jane,” he said, “I’m proud of you. I’m gratified that you took responsibility and stayed calm.”
Janey stared straight ahead; amazingly, it looked as if she was about to cry.
“And you know what?” Mr. Laskey said. “I have a thought. I think what we should do before our nap is to get Mommy a present. Isn’t that a good idea?”
Janey and Alice nodded soberly.
“We’ll get Mommy a present to show that we’re thinking about her and to congratulate her for having two such good girls. Now, I’m just going to make a phone call, and when I come back Alice will have finished her sundae and we’ll march along.”
“We’ll call Mommy?” Alice said, still furrowed and dubious.
“We’ll call Mommy when we’re all together,” Mr. Laskey said.
“When…” Alice said, and shook her head slowly.
“When we can be all together at the phone in the hotel,” Mr. Laskey said.
Well, it was true; Janey, of all people, had taken responsibility last night. There had been no alternative. When Alice awakened for the second time, rattling as if in the grip of a high fever, and could not be consoled, Kyla had said to Janey, “Should we get your father?”
“I don’t know,” Janey said. “Daddy said if we needed anything we should ask Donald.”
Alice, in a damp heap, continued to sob. “But what do we need?” Kyla said.
“Hmm,” Janey said. She and Kyla looked at each other. “True…”
“Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy,” Alice screamed.
“Be quiet, Alice, please,” Janey said. “You’re going to wake up everyone in the hotel.”
“Daddy—” Alice screamed again, at an increased volume.
“All right,” Janey said. “I’ll get him.”
But she was not able to rouse him either by knocking on his door or—when Kyla located a plastic card that told you how to call the other rooms—by telephone.
Kyla could hear her own heart pounding, or maybe it was Janey’s, as they both snuggled against Alice on the little cot. What if Mr. Laskey had actually had a heart attack? What if he was lying there dead in the next room?
“Hey, Alice, let go,” Janey said. “I’m going downstairs to get you a cup of hot milk, and then you’re going to sleep.”
Janey put her coat over her nightie and went out the big wooden door of their room, and Kyla remembered that there were many other people, in many other rooms, all around them. Beyond the sad blue flowers on the wallpaper, in fact, millions of people, who couldn’t help them at all, slumbered on in the twinkling city. At least Alice was still cute, lucky for her; Kyla thought of the new plainness spreading like an illness through her own face. Don’t cling, her mother had said. “Do you want to play something, Alice?” Kyla said, when Alice grew quieter. “Do you want to play Baby?”
Alice hiccuped. “No!” she shrieked.
And then Janey had returned, with, in fact, a big mug of hot milk. “Here, Alice,” she said.
Alice accepted the mug and held it out to Kyla. “Baby drink,” she said, and hiccuped again.
“Stop that, Alice,” Janey said. “You drink that yourself. Pronto. Donald made them put honey in it for you, wasn’t that nice? So I want you to say thank you to him the very next time you see him.”
Janey sat down stiffly and looked out the window while Alice drained her milk with gulps and sighs and, finally, a little belch.
“Donald said nothing can wake him up when he’s asleep,” Janey said. “He said once there was a burglar in his apartment and his roommate screamed and called the police and the police came and he slept through it all.”
Kyla nodded, though Janey was still looking out the window.
“Lucky Richie,” Janey said.
“For sure,” Kyla said. And then it was as if Janey had lifted a curtain, and what was there—and had been there all alo
ng—was Richie. But Richie blending back and forth with Mr. Laskey—blending with Mr. Laskey helplessly because she had done something to him. She had done something to him, with Ellen and Courtney; she had let something happen to Richie.
The next morning when they got up and got dressed, Janey was still frozen slow and pale. But then there was Mr. Laskey, reading his newspaper at the breakfast table, just as always. “Daddy’s here!” Alice observed superfluously. Janey paused; Alice scampered ahead to the table, and Janey went right into the cross mood that had lasted her all day.
“There,” Mr. Laskey said when the bracelet they had all—including Kyla—chosen for Mrs. Laskey was put into its beautiful little velvet box. “I think Mommy’s going to be very happy with that.”
And no wonder, Kyla thought—delicate strips of gold, flashing with stars. It wasn’t fair—it would look so much prettier on her own mother. And her mother deserved it, which Mrs. Laskey did not, and her mother would have been so much more grateful to have it. Kyla could just see her mother’s face, radiant with surprise and love, if Kyla could present her with just such a little velvet box.
Mr. Laskey raised his hand in the air again, and this time what appeared was a taxi. They all climbed into the back seat quickly enough—Kyla landed a bit sideways between Janey and the door—but when Mr. Laskey gave the address of their hotel, the driver shook his head in disgust. “You’d be better off walking,” he shouted over the loud fuzz of his radio. “The whole East Side is a nightmare.”
“Thank you for your concern, sir,” Mr. Laskey said. “But we’ll keep the taxi. It’s a good fifteen blocks, and the little girls are tired.”
“You’re absolutely positive,” the driver said. He turned down his radio. “In three more blocks we’re not going to budge.”
Mr. Laskey smiled. “I understand, sir,” he said. “But what do you suggest? We’re too tired to walk, and our hotel’s on the East Side.”
“What I suggest, sir,” the driver said, “in that case is, you move to the West Side.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Janey said.
“Because furthermore,” the driver said, “once I get into this shit I’m not going to be able to get out.”
“I’ll bear your difficulties in mind, sir,” Mr. Laskey said.
“It does me good to hear you say this,” the driver said, “because in a situation like today I starve.”
The cab, which had been hurtling from side to side, causing Alice to turn a delicate green, was indeed slowing down almost to a standstill. “It costs me more to hire the fucking car on a day like this than I can make.”
“I will, as I’ve said, sir, bear that in mind,” Mr. Laskey said. “Jane, human beings do not lead difficult lives for your personal amusement. Our driver is understandably anxious, but once we get past the bridge traffic everything will be fine.”
But within one more block they had entered a solid mass of honking horns in which Kyla’s fatigue seemed to entrap her like amber. And after a time Mr. Laskey leaned forward. “What’s the problem, driver?” he said. “We haven’t moved for twenty minutes.”
“What’s the problem?” the driver said. “The problem is we aren’t moving. Or, wait—you mean to ask what’s causing the problem.”
“That was my intention,” Mr. Laskey said. A pulse had begun to throb in his forehead. “Yes.”
The driver turned around and stared at Mr. Laskey. “Oh, hey—” he said, and struck the side of his head with his palm “—I get it! From which, ah…planet do you folks hail?”
“Perhaps you’ll be so kind…” Mr. Laskey said.
“With pleasure,” the driver said. He turned the radio up savagely, but it was almost impossible for Kyla to hear through the static and the honking what it was saying. There was an apartment building, somewhere near their hotel, and there were policemen—
“Who?” Janey was yelling over all the noise. “What did he do?”
“‘Who?’” the driver yelled back. “‘What?’ Incredible. Every radio station in the city. Every television network in the universe. More blood per cubic foot than the siege of Stalingrad. Where are you from, folks, seriously now—New Jersey?”
“Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Janey was shouting.
“This is not important, Jane,” Mr. Laskey said.
“Not important,” the driver said. “Right. Not important. Well, of course it’s not important. You types really stick together, don’t you? Sure, if the guy’s rich enough, if the guy’s handsome enough, if the guy remembers what kind of mineral water each of his patients drinks, it’s just not important if he bludgeons his wife to death with a floor lamp, is it. It’s not important that he pulverized her.”
“I don’t think this is strictly—” Mr. Laskey began.
“Oh, pardon,” the driver said. “I have the honor of addressing a gentleman of the law, I’ll wager. It’s been alleged that this guy liquefied his wife; it’s been alleged that the neighbors waded in through body parts; it’s been alleged that he fled, dragging his poor little child with him, to his girlfriend’s apartment where the cops later found a sweater, all gunked up with hair and blood that allegedly matches his wife’s; and now it’s being alleged that he’s up on the roof with this kid and he’s—”
“Sir, I do not think—” Mr. Laskey said, and Alice began to cry.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. Alice,” Janey said. “No one cares about you.”
“That’s right, Alice,” Mr. Laskey said. “Nothing’s going to happen to any of us.”
“Oh, hey—” The driver turned around. He looked into Alice’s eyes and took her hand. “Hey, I’m sorry, darlin’. It’s going off, right now.” He turned the radio off. “Click, right? No more depressing stories.”
“Sir,” Alice said, and rubbed her cheek against his hand.
Mr. Laskey sighed. “Alice, sweetheart,” he said, “let the man drive.”
“Why did he do it?” Janey said. “Daddy?”
“We’ll never know, Jane,” Mr. Laskey said. “Normal people can never penetrate the mind of a sick individual.” He rolled down his window and thrust his head out.
“The wife was trash,” the driver said. “What do you want to bet? A slut. A nag. A gold-digger. All the same, he should’ve just divorced her.”
“Girls—” Mr. Laskey looked at his watch. “I’m afraid it would be a great deal faster to walk at this point.”
“Hey, listen to this guy, kids!” the driver said. “The original rocket scientist. It would be faster to walk! When do you think Mr. Wizard got a chance to perform the calculations? Say”—he turned around with raised eyebrows—“how’s right here for you folks?”
“Do we get to pat the goaties?” Alice said as Mr. Laskey opened the door.
“Alice,” Janey said, “you’re confused again.”
Mr. Laskey handed the driver a bill. “Here you are, sir. I sincerely hope this will recompense you for your time.”
“And I, sir”—the driver dropped the bill into the gutter—“sincerely hope this will encourage you to reinsert your patronizing shit back up your butt, where it came from.”
“The second we get inside,” Mr. Laskey said as they straggled up the steps to the hotel, “I want you to get yourselves upstairs—It’s way past three. Way, way past three,” he added, shaking his head ominously. “And I want you to wash those hands. Alice’s especially.”
“Her hands are clean,” Alice said loftily. “She washed them after lunch.”
“That was after lunch,” Mr. Laskey said. “You’ve touched God knows what since.”
As they stepped inside the hotel, five or six young men in uniforms—bellboys and desk clerks—swiveled away from a small television on the front desk. Their eyes, brilliant with excitement, dimmed immediately into courteous greeting. “Hello, Mr. Laskey,” one of them said. “Horrifying, this business, isn’t it?”
“Horrifying,” Mr. Laskey said, glancing at his watch irritably. “Come along, girls.”
“What’s that?” Mr. Laskey frowned back at Donald.
Donald hesitated.
“Yes?” Mr. Laskey said. He paused, looking at his watch again, and Alice bumped into his leg.
“That is,” Donald said, “Miss Shawcross was here for you. I’m afraid she just left.”
“Didn’t she get my message?” Mr. Laskey said.
“I don’t know, sir,” Donald said.
“My mother’s on the phone?” Alice said.
“Shut up, Alice,” Janey said.
Alice tugged Mr. Laskey’s sleeve. “Janey said, ‘Shut up, Alice,’” she reported.
“Be quiet, Alice,” Mr. Laskey said. “But I left her a message at her office. Didn’t she get it?”
“I don’t know, sir. She didn’t say.”
Alice sat down suddenly on the carpet.
“Your dress, Alice!” Janey exclaimed. “Get off your butt. Mother would kill you!”
“My mother would kill you,” Alice said, but she scrambled to her feet, swatting at her rear end.
“How are my girls?” Donald said. “Imaginations cooler in the light of day?” He winked at Janey, who gazed serenely at a point on the other side of his head.
Mr. Laskey appeared to wake from a trance. “Don’t we say hello to people who say hello to us?” he said.
“Ah, Stan—” Donald said, and one of the uniformed men wrenched himself away from the TV screen to open the door for a man with a briefcase, and the blaring of horns entered the lobby.
“This is the damnedest business,” Mr. Laskey said. “God damn it.”
All Around Atlantis Page 18