“I know it’s easy to infer things from what you saw—”
“Infer things!”
“Listen to me for a second.”
“I am not inferring—”
“Hold up . . . please. Wrong choice of words. Okay? My fault.” His voice was measured, skilled. I remembered a magazine article I’d once read about a technique used by cops to soothe and manipulate overemotional witnesses. It was called verbal judo. They even offered courses in it at the police academy.
He’s using a talking technique on me, I thought. I wanted to slap Krull across the face. I’ll show you verbal judo, you fucking cop . . .
“Samantha?”
I glared at him.
“I’m going to give you two scenarios and you tell me, from an objective point of view, which makes the most sense. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“Scenario one: Just like you said, you stumbled on a bisexual devil worshiper making human sacrifices at the Hudson River with his female slave accomplice, and he subsequently stalks you and seduces your friend—to send you a message.”
“I know it sounds weird, but that’s what hap—”
“Scenario two: You see two people at the river: a woman, and a man with a pair of weird-assed contacts. They’ve taken a few bucks under the table to illegally dispose of medical waste in ice chests, which—unlike human sacrifice—is a common thing to do. Since you’re a witness to what is, in fact, a criminal act, he gives you a nasty look, maybe even starts to follow you. But then he gives up and forgets about it. Later, some asshole at—what was it, Great White?—doesn’t like seeing a woman in a gay bar so he takes out his pencil and writes a little note in your book, X-es out the eyes of your mom, who by the way, looks a lot like you. Later, your friend meets a different guy with the same contacts. Maybe the guy is into sadism, I don’t know. That’s not unusual in this precinct, and it isn’t a crime between consenting adults.”
“I know that.”
“Now, I don’t doubt you saw some people dropping an ice chest in the river. But until that ice chest is recovered and we can look inside it, the only crime you’ve got to report is littering. Okay?”
I stared silently at Krull, and he stared right back at me. The fact that I’d mistaken him for anything other than a typical shithead policeman could only mean I was disgustingly superficial, capable of allowing my entire perspective on life and law enforcement to be swayed by . . . what? A smile? A few kind words?
“I am not an idiot! I’m not shocked by sadomasochism. I know when someone is—is littering. I know what I saw and I know what to make of what I saw . . . and . . . you . . . you are making a big mistake, Detective.”
I wasn’t sure when I’d jumped to my feet, but I was standing now. Krull looked up at me. “I never said you were an idiot. You are an intelligent person. When you’ve calmed down a little, do me a favor and think about what I’ve said. I’m pretty sure you’ll realize it makes sense. Because you are. You’re very intelligent.” That was it. The sickly sweet icing on the verbal judo cake.
“You must be a black belt,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll find my own way out.” I more or less jogged out of the squad room. Someone shouted, “Nice work, Krull!” as the door slammed behind me.
It took me several minutes to locate the staircase, but at least I didn’t ask anyone for directions.
7
Two Hours Late
No Tears for Addie was the biggest flop to abuse the Space’s stage since My Baby’s a Hat! the Oliver Sacks-inspired musical comedy that nearly shut the place down just after it opened in 1989. That was a good thing for me, because if it had inconvenienced any customers, the fact that I’d shown up for work two hours late would’ve been grounds for dismissal.
As it stood, Roland did the next best thing, which was dragging Yale upstairs to back him up at his weekly meeting with the theater’s owner and stationing me at the buyers’ window between Shell Clarion and Hermyn—a punishment if there ever was one.
I hadn’t been able to say anything to Yale, which was all right because I didn’t know what I would have said to him given the chance. When I’d first come in, all he did was shake his head at me like I was a bad idea. Why wouldn’t anyone believe me?
The only crime you’ve got to report is littering. I could practically hear Krull say it again as I separated and alphabetized the evening’s few will-call tickets, and the back of my neck heated up. I wished I’d slapped him when I’d had the opportunity.
“What the fuck is going on with you?” asked Shell Clarion. Apparently, she’d been talking to me for quite some time.
“Man trouble.” It wasn’t a lie. First Nate’s picture, then Peter Steele, then Yale, then Krull. If men didn’t exist, my day would’ve been trouble free.
“Men suck,” Shell said, glaring at Hermyn.
“Why are you looking at me, Shell? I’m not a man.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Pardon?”
“Can you picture it in a wedding dress?” she stage-whispered. “Talk about a drag show.”
I did my best to ignore her. “Where’s Argent?”
“She’s auditioning,” Hermyn said, “for Cats.”
I recalled the hand-written word in my book and shuddered. The fact that Cats now terrified me made me even angrier at Krull. Hide in my book was not about littering. The way my mother’s picture had been violated with a pencil was not about littering. And it certainly wasn’t about being a woman in Great White.
Krull was right about one thing. My mother’s picture looked a lot like me. At the time it was taken, she’d been just five years older than I was now. Give me a little kohl liner and a frost-and-tip, we’d be identical. Especially the eyes. The X-ed-out eyes. My throat clenched up.
I said, “I thought Cats closed.”
“Not Broadway,” Hermyn said. “The production is in New Hope, Pennsylvania.”
“Large Arge in a unitard? Don’t make me puke.”
Shut up, Shell, I thought, like a mantra. Shut up Shell. Shut up Shell. Shut up Shell . . . “New Hope. That’s a commute.”
“It is, but I bet she gets the part,” Hermyn added. “Argent really does have a beautiful voice. I’m thinking of asking her to sing at my wedding.”
“I suppose that’s one way to get somebody to come. Where are you renting your tux, by the way . . . Her-man ?”
That was it. My last nerve of the day, and Clarion had snapped it in two. I turned and glared at her, sitting on the metal stool in her black velveteen leggings and her black patent leather boots and her tight black turtleneck with pink, fuzzy valentine hearts all over it, commenting on Hermyn’s looks, Hermyn’s clothes. Shell, with that beige bleach job and that junior smoker’s voice, like a rubber band twanging, and nothing, absolutely nothing on her mind that didn’t spill out of her mouth. Shell, with her soap operatic jealousy and her shallow opinions and her hatred of Hermyn and Yale and Argent and En—of everyone except me. How insulting.
I said, “You are a bitter, bitter cow.”
“What did you say?”
“The world does not revolve around you and whether or not you’re getting laid, which you’re obviously not or else you wouldn’t be so obsessed with Hermyn’s wedding. A performance artist who hasn’t said a fucking word to you or to anyone for the past three years, and you hate her because she’s found a little bit of happiness with a dentist you’ve never even met? Is your life so pathetic and petty and small that a woman you’ve never spoken to marrying a man you’ve never met is enough to rock the core of your existence? You stupid bitch, look at it out there! You have no idea how lucky you are just to be safe!”
Shell Clarion stared at me, her pink lips forming a tiny o, the color draining slowly from her face. I’d never spoken to her like that, mainly because I felt sorry for her. I knew she couldn’t do anything about her awful sense of humor or the uncontrollable urge she had to talk behind people’
s backs in front of their faces. I also knew she had no friends. I’d held my tongue with Shell because she sometimes reminded me of one of my preschoolers—she was that helpless in the world.
I looked down at her legs, dangling like a child’s over the edge of the stool, her feet at least two inches shy of the floor, even in those heels. I wanted to say I’m sorry Shell, but I couldn’t make myself do it.
She narrowed her eyes at me, swallowed so hard I could see her throat moving under her turtleneck. “I am getting laid,” she said.
After Shell stormed out the door for a cigarette break, Hermyn said, “Well, I wouldn’t fuck her,” and I started giggling, somewhat hysterically. Hermyn began laughing too, and minutes later when En showed up, lay down on his back and thrust his ass into high-noon position, his sneakers kissing the floor behind his head, it was nearly all we could take.
“Grow up. It’s yoga,” he said, which only made us laugh more, until tears streamed down our cheeks and our intermittent screams pierced the air and it felt as if we’d never be able to stop.
One hour later, Hermyn was on the phone with her mother, and she was the only one talking.
I was remembering how Tredwell had closed his eyes as he described the feel of candle wax on his bare skin. How he’d seemed, for a moment, to savor the memory.
The candles represent hellfire. Hell burns with the fire of lust. That’s what Peter would say. The fire of lust. Satan’s sustenance. Only he’d say it backwards. Natas. In Satanism, you say names backwards. He’d call me Llewdert when we fucked . . .
Red candles?
Red for blood. Virgin blood. Like the robes. We were naked under the robes, did I tell you?
Did you and Peter ever sacrifice anything?
“No,” Hermyn said into the phone. “No, no thank you, no no, nope, no, ma’am, no way, abso-tootin’lutely not.” Her voice was calm, but the denials became more and more emphatic until finally, she erupted. “I said no, Mother! I’m the one who’s getting married and I do not want to do the hora. Mother . . . I . . . I don’t care what Aunt Gussie thinks . . . I refuse to be lifted over people’s heads in a chair . . . I just refuse, I don’t have to give a reas—Okay, okay. It’s degrading and traditionalist and . . . and . . . scary. I’m afraid I’ll fall.”
I glanced at Shell, who hadn’t said a word to me or to anyone since returning from her break. You’d think she was drowningly absorbed in the month-old National Enquirer that she’d plucked out of Argent’s cubbyhole, only she hadn’t turned the page once. I tried smiling at her, just for the hell of it. She diverted her eyes long enough to glower at me, then pointedly raised the tabloid so that her entire face was hidden behind the cover, which read “Whitney Goes Wild!”
En was sitting at the computer at the far end of the ticketing room, ostensibly checking seat reservations on the Space’s Web site but actually responding to posts on a site called www.ScreenwriteRomance.com. Earlier, I’d sneaked up behind him and peered over his shoulder. “When I’m not playing semipro football, I’m penning a brutal Faulkner adapt,” he’d typed, before sensing my presence and throwing both hands in front of the screen.
En didn’t look like any football player I’d ever seen. He was five-six, 120 pounds soaking wet and probably didn’t need to shave more than once a week. At age thirty-two, he still couldn’t buy a pack of cigarettes without getting carded. Did he ever meet these women in person?
“Hey,” I said. “You’d better get off that site before Roland gets back from his meeting. He is not in a pretty mood today.”
“And whose fault is that, Two Hours Late?” Shell said.
I sighed heavily. “Look, Shell. I’m sorry I said you weren’t getting laid.”
“I’m not speaking to you. And like I said, I am.”
“Anybody I know?” said En.
“Shut up!”
“Good-bye, Mother. I’ve had enough of this . . . I’m not talk—I—All right . . . all right . . . ALL RIGHT! I’LL DO THE HORA!” Hermyn slammed the receiver back on its cradle and let her head drop into her hands.
I patted her on the back. “My mother’s a pain in the ass, too.”
“Why’d I have to start talking again?”
I thought about my conversations with Peter, Yale, Krull, Shell. “I might take a vow of silence. But only with certain people.”
“You guys should check your mail,” En said as he got up from the computer. “I actually had two ticket orders.”
I sat down in En’s still-warm chair and logged on. The only person who ever e-mailed me at thespace.com was Sydney, who regularly sent me excerpts from her own books that she thought “spoke directly” to whatever she perceived to be going on in my mind. I’d repeatedly explained to her that 1) I already owned all of her books and 2) My e-mail address was for ticket-related issues only (not entirely true, but whatever). Neither point deterred her. I received motherly, self-help-guru e-mail at least twice a week. And, after the previous night’s phone conversation, I knew I was in for a lengthy document. “At least your mother just wants you to do a folk dance at your wedding,” I said to Hermyn. “Mine thinks I’m a drug addict.”
“Why?”
“Because I like to take walks by the river.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Welcome to the Wonderful World of Sydney.” I saw two new letters in my mailbox, and sure enough, the first was from my mom. I recognized the subject line as a chapter title from Your Spiritual Lifeboat: “Healthy Habits Are the Oars.” I didn’t bother opening it.
The second one bore an unfamiliar return address: ER425160 at one of the major Internet providers, and the subject line was blank. When I opened it up, I saw just one word on the screen: Your. It was probably a mistake—some disgruntled Addie patron, angry at me over the theater’s “no refund” policy, someone who had started to write Your rules are unfair, or Your policies leave much to be desired or Your job is history and had hit the send button too early. All of us got angry e-mails, especially since Addie had opened.
There were, however, two unusual things about this note. The first was that I hadn’t had a run-in with a customer in over a week and a half—and that person, a Southern woman who had actually accused Roland and me of pocketing her money to finance “that disgusting May-December thing y’all have going on,” had already sent us a nasty letter, by regular mail, from West Virginia. The second was that the word your was centered on the screen.
“Happy days, kids!” said Roland. He was smiling, a rare sight, particularly lately.
Shell said, “Did you fire St. Germaine?”
“No, my dear. He’s gone home. We’re canceling Addie. And you’ve all got a week off, paid.”
I sensed movement in the courtyard, and when I looked out the window I saw several cast members leaving the theater in their street clothes.
“Yes!” said En. Hermyn let out a huge whoop. Shell said, “You’re shitting me.”
“I’m going to miss you guys.” After I said it, I realized I wasn’t being sarcastic.
“How about helping me close up?” said Roland.
“Sure.” I wondered why Yale had left so quickly. Probably to avoid me, but at least it wasn’t to meet Peter. He says no one’s worth the company I keep.
“Miranda! Miranda!” Shell said into the ticket window microphone. She’d been peering out the window over my shoulder, and her voice was like broken glass in my ears. “Miraaaanda!”
Miranda, an actress who naturally possessed the blond, patrician looks Shell strove for, played Dewey Dell in Addie and had made the mistake of introducing herself to the box office staff at the start of the show’s run.
Having seen All About Eve several times too many, Shell thought that the quickest route to stealing the part for herself was to glom onto Miranda like some sort of deranged fan, shrieking her name whenever she passed the box office, which had been happening less and less. I watched the young actress, her shiny, butter-scotch hair backlit by a street
light, shielding her face with a black glove as she pretended to search for something near the heel of her boot.
“Why don’t you give it a rest?” I said. “The show is over, so you’re not going to get the part.”
Shell was already out the door.
“I can’t believe she wanted to play that part in that show at this theater,” En said as he buttoned up his coat. “Imagine aiming that low and still not getting what you’re after.”
I emptied the thin envelopes, made a small pile of unclaimed will-call tickets, and placed them in the drawer. “Do you want me to enter these into the computer?” I asked Roland.
“Nah, I’ll do it later. Just make a sign for the door, if you would, and I’ll see ya next week.” He paused for a moment. “Don’t be late.”
“I’m sorry, Roland. It won’t happen again.”
“I know it won’t. It wasn’t like you.”
“Nothing is like me lately.”
“Sammy!” Shell seemed to have decided to speak to me again.
“Just a second. I’m making a sign.”
“Guess what Miranda’s doing now that Addie’s closed! She’s up for a big part on Live and Let Live! Opposite Nate Gundersen! Didn’t you used to date him?”
I capped the pen and rubbed my temples. The headache was back, with newfound superpowers. I turned towards the doorway where Shell held Miranda captive. “Yeah, I used to . . .”
Miranda wore pupilless, mirrored contacts.
“Shit.”
“Is he nice?” Miranda said. “I’m totally nervous about this audition. It’s my first major TV part, you know? Especially opposite a big star like him. I’ve done under-fives, but that’s it.”
“Where did you get those lenses?”
“Aren’t they fabulous?” Shell said. “Everybody’s getting them. They’re called Magic Mirrors.”
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