Glimmer As You Can

by Danielle Martin

  She found herself dialing Madeline. It was midnight, but that wouldn’t matter. But nobody answered, so she closed her eyes and hung up.

  Somehow, under her pulsating eyelids, she managed to nod off for a few short hours, even with the empty spot in the bed next to her, now cold.

  In the morning, Tommy hadn’t returned.

  Elaine found herself back on the chilly sidewalks, walking to the bus. Everyone else walked with resolute strides as she made her way to her destination in spasms and shivers.

  * * *

  The Chronicle was chaotic, with more reports about the horrific plane crash. Fatigue rushed over her in waves, but she gathered her notes together and began her typed confirmations.

  A courier stopped at her desk. “Ms. Huxley, a delivery for you.”

  The package didn’t have a return address. She ripped open its plain brown wrapping paper to find a shiny box. It was a package of chocolates, with a note printed on the candy store’s gift card. Thank you for taking care of me. Love, Tommy.

  She uttered a curse under her breath, and fat, intrusive tears slipped down her cheeks. She knelt behind her desk to hide her face.

  She had to type up her notes. She had a deadline. He wouldn’t distract her, trying to stop her from being effective at her job. She worked as fast as she could, typing in a frenzy, making her calls, finishing her notes and handing them to the editor upstairs, and working on the second article. The office air smelled of metallic typewriters, crumpled papers and sweat. It was a dirty but purposeful smell accompanied by tap-tapping, quick footsteps and murmured voices.

  She made it to five PM. On the bus, she made moves to write a poem, but nothing would come out.

  As the bus neared her stop, her eyes locked in a trance.

  He was at home when she got there, at the kitchen table, with his disheveled hair. The sharp line of his jaw bit the tip of a cigar, his lip curved over its brown top. He was messing with a gadget on the table, something with twisted wires.

  He looked normal. Like any man doing work.

  “I spent a lot of time on this today.” He turned animated as he got up from his chair and paced around the room. “I really think I got something here!” He jumped around like a little boy.

  Elaine took a sharp breath inward.

  Now, his sudden lightness.

  He was so many people at once.

  “Oh?”

  He had asked nothing about her work. And she was at one of the most important newspapers in the city.

  “Yeah. I figured I would have a nice prototype to show the guys who interview me.”

  “Interview?”

  “I’ve got a job interview set up for Friday.”

  “Friday?”

  “Yeah, I figure I should start bringing in some more money too. After all, we’re burning through my inheritance pretty quickly right now. And I’m hoping …” Tommy grabbed her and drew her close to his chest. He smelled like clean aftershave, with only a minor trace of alcohol on his breath. “Well, I’m hoping that we can save up a little. For our wedding, you know.” He held her hand, and his fingers encircled her engagement ring. “After all, you deserve something nice.”

  Elaine’s packed bags remained on the floor upstairs.

  22

  Elaine

  Elaine watched the stricken, soot-filled faces of the search crews on the news.

  They interviewed the firefighters who had arrived at the scene of the plane crash, only to find no survivors.

  Tommy wasn’t home, as usual. He could have watched with them—seen the people whose struggles burned out in front of their faces instead of in their souls.

  Catherine was there—coming in with her food, settling down on the settee. “Isn’t it horrific? Hey, what about your friend, that blonde girl? What’s her name, Lisa? That one who went to the Starlite in her stewardess uniform?”

  “She works for Pan Am.”

  “Golly gee, that lucky girl.” Catherine shuddered. “By the way, have you seen Tommy? I owe him a couple of dollars.”

  “He gave you money?”

  “You know, my wallet was empty, and I needed some money that day. I had to go buy a pair of shoes for my job interview. It was too bloody freezing to walk to the bank.”

  “Sister dear, if you need money, ask me—not Tommy. All right?”

  “What’s the big deal? He is your fiancé, isn’t he?”

  Elaine’s throat was craggy; she struggled to speak. “I’m not married to him.” She ended the sentence on a sharp note to stop the conversation.

  She hadn’t told Catherine the beginnings of her plan.

  The evening before, after he left, she had carefully unpacked her clothing—she had returned each item to the closet. She had readied her things for the next day.

  There were places for men to go with problems like his. During her lunch break, she had looked in the archives at the Chronicle and found a recovery center in Manhattan.

  He would be sure to laugh at the foolishness of her idea. He would never admit to a problem.

  Sure, put me away in a place somewhere, Elaine! That’s a handy way of disposing of me!

  It was sure to go like that. Then he would leave the house again and find more to drink somewhere.

  After a sudden creak, the front door opened. She heard Tommy’s uneven footsteps heading inside the house, with one of his drinking buddies.

  “Hellooo!” he bellowed.

  She didn’t respond, and Catherine gave her a look.

  On the television, they were interviewing witnesses to the plane crash. Tommy swung into the room with a loud whoop, his buddy at his heels.

  Tommy plopped next to Elaine on the sofa, throwing his arm around her. His voice was high-pitched and unnatural, as though he was trying to sound sober. “This is my lady right here!”

  Elaine edged away from his arm, keeping her eyes fixed on the horrifying scene on the screen.

  The friend, Peter, had found his way into her fruit basket, and he loudly chomped an apple in the doorway. “Tommy told me that you’ve been going to that women’s club, Elaine. You know, my police officer buddy told me that it was vandalized the other day. Maybe you should lay off your visits to dangerous places. You know, your guy here is quite, quite worried about you.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Drunken Tommy tapped an invisible drum on his knee, with that great big scar on his forehead from Lord knows where. Stupid Peter was glazed over, with glassy eyes and an idiotic face.

  Yet she responded anyway—as though she had something to prove.

  “I heard the Starlite is getting a guard. They’ll charge a bit of money at the door, and we’ll be very safe in there.”

  * * *

  Later, Tommy and his friend were engaged in a game with wires and cigarette lighters. They guffawed and cursed as pieces of the wire caught aflame, then snuffed them out between their fingers.

  Elaine smelled plastic and metal burning and ran up behind them, hissing in Tommy’s ear.

  “You need to stop.”

  “Stop what, baby? We’re having a little fun.” He flickered his lighter and giggled. His eyes were bloodshot, with spindly veins.

  “It’s dangerous. You need to stop. Maybe you could come inside and have a conversation with me and my sister, like a regular person.”

  “All you’re doing is watching the news. That crap depresses the hell out of me.”

  “It’s real life.” She changed to a regular tone—no more hushed hissing. His friend wasn’t paying attention, immersed in their little game.

  Tommy squinted at her. “That’s life? Looking at a whole bunch of death?”

  “I have a friend who could have perished in that plane, you know. She was lucky.” He didn’t respond to her; he only grunted out expletives as his fingers blistered. “Do you even care? Do you care about what’s going on?”

  He paused his work with the wires. “Of course I care, baby. But I can’t think about anything like that to
o much, you know?”

  For a moment, he looked sad, even earnest. As though things were just too much for him to handle.

  His eyes were glassy and she had to turn away.

  * * *

  Hours later, he was going out again. His buddy had already left.

  “When will you be back?”

  Tommy made a cocky half smile. “When the sun shines and I’m feeling good.”

  It was an English translation from a French poem they both loved. He was sober enough.

  She got sharp with him, suddenly—as an energy swept over her, something unlike her usual self.

  “Get the hell out, then, if you’re going.”

  “Get the hell out of my own house? Ha!” His voice was slurred again. He kicked the ironing board as though it were a misbehaving animal.

  The steaming-hot iron nearly fell on Elaine’s arm, plate down.

  She screamed, with a fury she had never held on her own.

  “Get the hell out!”

  He scurried out and slammed the door, hard.

  The brownstone shook, and her lip began to quiver, like gelatin pushed back and forth by childish thumbs. But this time she didn’t retreat. She made herself continue amid intermittent shakes in her body. She ironed her clothes as though nothing around her were happening, as if she were in some sort of humdrum, normal existence. She made her lunch for the next day, deriving a small pleasure from the sane and predictable elegance of placing a slice of bologna on bread. Life would go on. She had a job; she was making her own money again. She had even managed to save some of the money, stashing ten-dollar bills into balled-up nylons in the back of her sock drawer. When it came time to leave, she would have a deposit for an apartment.

  She would wear a large hat to hide her face, so he wouldn’t know her if he saw her on the street.

  He was impossibly good-looking, so he would find another girl quick enough—maybe a lonely lass who liked to drink as much as he did. He would impregnate her, quickly. His new girl would fret away at home with a baby while he ran amok elsewhere.

  Now he was off, to do whatever he did.

  Catherine seemed to be staying at the brownstone that evening; there were sounds of her puttering around in the guest room.

  Elaine would join her in the guest room for a chat. She would grab a few blankets and sleep in the guest room on the floor as they talked themselves to sleep, like it was all very casual, a nostalgic slumber party—like when they would sneak into each other’s rooms and chitchat the night away as wee ones. Of course, she wouldn’t tell Catherine the truth, because one day Catherine would have a few drinks or get too tired, and then she would blurt out the wrong thing.

  Tommy could only find out once she was truly gone.

  Now she sauntered into the guest room as if nothing was askew, with an upright, casual gait.

  Yet Catherine eyed her suspiciously. “Don’t you have to be getting ready for bed now?”

  “Are you trying to be Mum or something?”

  Elaine brought a pillow down from the sofa, which became an invitation to play fight, as though they were children. They chased each other around like mice, bashing each other with velvet pillows, and she threw herself into an anarchic frenzy. They collapsed on the floor in a breathless heap; Elaine was even giggling, before she turned quiet.

  Having thus exhausted herself, she laid her head on a pillow like it was a cloud, near sleep. But her sister interrupted her quiet daze.

  “Did I tell you I got a singing gig?”

  “That’s stellar! Where at?”

  “Well, it’s some ways out, in Hoboken, actually. Have you heard of Hoboken? In New Jersey? Anyway, it’s just for a couple of nights, actually. At some executive’s penthouse, I guess. He’s having some fancy get-togethers for his associates.”

  “Maybe some of the executives will hire you after they hear you sing.”

  “Maybe. It would be nice to not have to mooch off you and Tommy forever.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right.”

  Catherine would have to leave the brownstone anyway, along with her.

  It was late on a work night—around ten thirty. Elaine got up and turned off the light. She curled up on a nest of blankets on the floor as Catherine sprawled out on the velvet couch.

  “You know what, Elaine? I’ve been saving up. Soon I’ll have enough to get a place of my own.”

  “Maybe I can move in with you,” Elaine whispered, in a voice soft enough for Catherine to miss. Soon, a shroud of sleep descended over her, and she shut her eyes.

  They were both quiet, drifting off.

  Then, through the walls, there was a squeak of the front door.

  A clatter. A crash.

  A splintering sound and a moan.

  Elaine pricked her ears.

  There was a sharp gag, a spilling of some kind, then more gagging.

  Then nothing.

  Silence.

  Catherine was still asleep.

  Tommy would have left the door ajar, in his state. Anyone could have come inside.

  Her breathing was fast and heavy. Her ears were peeled.

  She hunted for sharp objects—books, candles, a transistor radio.

  There was a sculpture on the table—a small, leaden statue with a pointed edge. She held it close to her chest and opened the door in one fell swoop, plowing toward the front hall.

  There had been a spill. Globs of sickness spewed across the carpet.

  Elaine’s nose seized up with the smell—after that, she could barely see.

  He was on the carpet, not moving.

  His body lay twisted near the fragments of a broken vase.

  Tommy was faceup, with his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

  Time stood still for a moment, along with the image of his frozen face.

  23

  Elaine

  Madeline had never met Tommy.

  But when she heard of Elaine’s loss, she strove to do something.

  “We’ll have a remembrance day. Bring any writing you’ve done about him. I’m sure you’ve done something. It will give you an opportunity to think about his life, to talk about it in a public way.” Madeline waited a full minute for agreement before prompting her further. “So what do you think, dear?”

  Elaine’s crisp, lively voice had been steamrolled. “Whatever you say.”

  * * *

  Everything was red, bleary. Elaine was a mass of eyes and headache and filth; she had not bathed in several days.

  The police had come on the night she found him. The coroner came, too, and they took him away. Catherine went to buy a bottle of bleach. With the flick of her wrist, she had doused the red and brown stains with bleach. The two of them sat in stunned silence and stared as it all turned white.

  A sudden end to it all.

  “I’ll tell the girls to wear black. I’ll call them up now, tell them about the memorial. I’m sure they’ll all be there. Have you left the house? Have you gotten something to eat? Where is Catherine?”

  Madeline kept calling. She kept asking questions, checking in. But nothing was regular or normal. She kept calling, as though she could help.

  The coroner declared it asphyxiation; it was rare, the result of alcohol poisoning. Elaine admitted to Catherine that she had always worried that Tommy might be killed in an altercation with another drunk, or that he might get hit by a car, dancing across the street in the darkness. Not this.

  It was a plunge into something incomprehensible.

  She was on the verge of throwing up with every movement she made, as it all flashed before her in each moment—his lifeless flesh, which lay in their entryway in a grotesque stilling of his passions, of his fraught inclinations.

  She had loved him, though it didn’t make any sense.

  “What was that?”

  She had to shake herself, make herself listen to Madeline, who was trying in the best way she knew how. “Do you need any food, darling?”

  “No, I’m
fine. There’s plenty in the refrigerator.” There were a few moldy things on the bottom shelf.

  “Make sure you let me know. You need to keep your strength up.”

  Elaine was frozen in place, yet her fingers ached to release the receiver. “I have to get going now.”

  She would go to their room—to the quiet, velvet enclave of the bed she had shared with him. The area where he had last slept still smelled like him. She curled up for a fitful nap, then woke, darting her head around like she might hear him in the background. It was always a guessing game, deciphering his next moment of unexpected behavior—would he be silent and brooding, affectionate and manic, or intellectual and chatty? Maybe he would be hopeful and brilliant, building some gadget.

  He had said he had an interview scheduled. He was going to turn his life around. That’s what he’d said.

  He had said so many things.

  The phone rang, and it was his aunt Mary, the only family he had left. She lived alone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and was bitter, widowed, and sarcastic. Elaine had met her once, at Tommy’s father’s funeral. She had shaken Elaine’s hand and asked if Elaine was “the girl” who was “shacking up” with her nephew.

  Elaine had asked Catherine to call his aunt Mary with the news that morning. Now she was calling back.

  “I thought you would be calling to tell me you had a wedding date.”

  Elaine didn’t respond. Tommy’s ashes would be returned to her next week, and she wasn’t sure about services. His aunt sounded confused and said something about calling again; then they hung up, and the phone rang once more.

  Elaine was talking from the end of some distant tunnel.

  “Hello?”

  “Madeline again, dear. I need to keep calling you to make sure you’re okay. I know what it’s like to suffer a loss, dear. I don’t have either one of my parents, you know. And it was a loss in its own way when Fred started doing his behaviors and all of that happened. I know about the solitude.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Listen, dear—why don’t you do some of that writing that you do so well? You know, I think it will help you. And then you could share it with us at the Starlite. Give it a try.”