Evening in Paradise

by Lucia Berlin

  “At least he taught me how to deseed weed,” she says, talking funny through the smoke.

  “So,” Decca continues. “He’ll be clean when he gets out. Alive and well in Acapulco. I gave him the best years of my life and now look. He’s alive and well in Acapulco with a carhop.” Decca’s speech is slurred now, her nose running as she wails, “The best years of my life!”

  “Hell, Decca, I gave him the worst years of my life!” The two women find this hysterically funny, slap at each other, hold their sides, stomp their feet and knock over the ashtray, laughing so hard. Laura starts to take a drink but spills it down the front of her pajamas.

  “Seriously, Decca,” Laura says. “This may be a really good thing. I hope they’re happy. He can show her the world. She will adore him, take care of him.”

  “Take him to the cleaners. Is she a floozy or what? Tacky carhop.”

  “You’re dating yourself. She’s more of a Clinique salesgirl, I’d say. You know she was once Miss Redondo Beach?”

  “You have style, B.B. A subtle, ladylike bitch. You’ll act simply delighted for the nuptial pair. Probably throw rice at them. So tell me now, how does it really feel, thinking of them in Acapulco? Imagine. Sunset now. The sun is making a green dot and vanishing. “Cuando Calienta el Sol” is playing. Lots of throbbing saxophone, maracas. No, the music is playing “Piel Canela” now but they’re still in bed. She’s asleep, tired after sun and waterskiing. Steamy sweaty sex. He lies full against her back. He grazes the back of her neck with his lips, leans, chews on her ear, breathing.”

  Laura spills some of a freshly poured drink down her shirtfront. “He did that to you?” Decca passes her a towel to dry herself with.

  “Bucket-Butt, you think you’ve got the only earlobe in the world?” She grins, enjoying this now. “Then he’d brush your breast with the palm of his hand, right? You’d groan and turn toward him. Then he’d catch your head in…”

  “Stop it!”

  They’re both depressed now. They smoke and drink with the elaborately careful slow motion of the very drunk. Cats come near them, weaving, but they both absentmindedly kick them away.

  “At least there weren’t any before me,” Decca said.

  “Elinor. She still calls him, middle of the night. Cries a lot.”

  “She doesn’t count. She was his student at Brandeis. One rainy intense weekend at Truro. Her family called the dean. End of romance and teaching career.”

  “Sarah?”

  “You mean Sarah? His sister Sarah? You’re not so dumb, B.B. Sarah is our biggest rival of all. I never said it out loud though. Do you think they ever actually made love?”

  “No, of course not. But they are so close. Fiercely close. I don’t think anybody could adore him like she does.”

  “I was jealous of her. God, I was jealous of her.”

  “Decca. Listen! Oh, wait a minute. I’ve got to pee.” Laura stands, totters, reels across the room into the bathroom. Decca hears her fall, the crack of head against porcelain.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Laura returns, crawling on all fours to her chair.

  “Life is fraught with peril.” She giggles. There is already a big blue goose bump on her forehead.

  “Listen, Decca. There is nothing to worry about. He’ll never marry Camille. Maybe he said that to get her down there. But he won’t. I’ll bet you a billion dollars. And you know why?”

  “Yep. I’ve got it. Sister Sarah! She’ll never get past old Sarah.”

  Decca had been tying her hair up with an elastic, high on top of her head so it looked like a crooked palm tree. Laura’s hair had come loose from her chignon, so a hunk just flops out of one side of her head. They sit smiling stupidly at one another in their burned wet clothes.

  “That’s right. Sarah really likes you and me. You know why?”

  “Because we are well-bred.”

  “Because we are ladies.” They toast each other with a fresh drink, laughing uproariously, kicking the floor.

  “It’s true,” Decca says. “Although perhaps at this moment we’re not quite at our best. So, tell me, were you jealous of Sarah too?”

  “No,” Laura says. “I never had a real family. She helped me feel part of one. Still does, and she loves the boys. No, I was jealous of the dope dealers. Juni, Beto, Willy, Nacho.”

  “Yeah, all the pretty punks.”

  “They always found us. A year and a half clean. Beto found us in Chiapas, at the foot of the church on the hill. San Cristóbal. Streaks of rain on his mirror sunglasses.”

  “You ever know Frankie?”

  “I knew Frankie. He was the sickest.”

  “I saw his dog die, once when he got busted. He even had his toy poodle strung out on junk.”

  “I once stabbed a connection, in Yelapa. I didn’t even hurt him, really. But I felt the blade go in, saw him bleed.”

  Decca is crying now. Sad sobs, like a child’s. She puts on Charlie Parker with Strings. “April in Paris.”

  “Max and I were in Paris in April. Rained the whole damn time. We were both pretty lucky, Laura, and drugs ruined it all. I mean for a short time we had everything a woman could want. Well, I knew him in his golden years. Italy and France and Spain. Mallorca. Everything he did turned to gold. He could write, play saxophone, fight bulls, race cars.” She pours them more rum.

  Laura can’t express herself. “I knew him when, when he was…”

  “You almost said happy, didn’t you? He was never happy.”

  “Yes, he was. We were. No one ever was so happy as we were.”

  Decca sighs. “That might be true. I thought it, seeing you all together. But it wasn’t enough for him.”

  “Once we were in Harlem. Max and a musician friend went into the bathroom to fix. The man’s wife looked at me, across the kitchen table, and she said, ‘There our men go, to the lady in the lake.’ Maybe we were wrong, Decca. Hubris or something, wanting to mean too much to him. Maybe this girl, what’s her name? Maybe she’ll just be there.”

  Decca had been talking to herself. Aloud she said, “No one could ever ever mean so much to me. Have you met any man who can touch him? His mind? His wit?”

  “No. And none of them are so kind or sweet, like how he cries at music, kisses his sons good night.”

  Both women are sobbing now, blowing their noses. “I get really lonesome. I try to meet men,” Laura says. “I even joined the ACLU.”

  “You what?”

  “I even went to the Sundowner for Happy Hour. But all the men just got on my nerves.”

  “That’s it. Other men jar after Max. They say ‘you know’ too much or repeat the same stories, laugh too loud. Max never bored, Max never jarred.”

  “I went out with this pediatrician. A sweet guy who wears bow ties, flies kites. The perfect man. Loves children, healthy, handsome, rich. He jogs, drinks rosé wine coolers.”

  The women roll their eyes. “Okay, so I have it all set up. The children are asleep. I’m in white chiffon. We’re at the table on the terrace. Candles. Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto bossa nova. Lobster. Stars. Then Max shows up, drives up on the lawn in a Lamborghini. Wearing a white suit. He gives us a little wave, goes in to see the kids, says something idiotic like he loves to look at them when they’re sleeping. I lost it. Smashed the rosé wine cooler pitcher on the bricks, threw the plates of lobster, smash, smash, salad plates, smash. Told the guy to hit the road.”

  “Which he did, right?”

  “Right.”

  “See, Laura, Max would never have left. He’d have said something like, ‘Honey, you need some loving,’ or he’d start throwing plates and dishes too until you were both laughing.”

  “Yeah. Actually he sort of did when he came out. He smashed some glasses and a vase of freesia but he rescued the lobster and we ate it. Sandy. He just grinned and said, ‘That pediatrician is hardly an improvement.’”

  “There’s never been a man like him. He never farted or be
lched.”

  “Yes, he did, Decca. A lot.”

  “Well, it never got on my nerves. You just came over to upset me. Go home!”

  “Last time you told me to go home you were in my house.”

  “I did? Hell, I’ll go home, then.”

  Laura gets up to leave. She lurches toward the bed to get her coat, stands there, getting her bearings. Decca comes up behind her, embraces her, touches her neck with her lips. Laura holds her breath, doesn’t move. Sonny Rollins is playing “In Your Own Sweet Way.” Decca leans, kisses Laura on the ear.

  “Then he brushes your nipple with the palm of his hand.”

  She does this to Laura. “Then you turn to him and he holds your head in both hands and kisses you on the mouth.” But Laura doesn’t move.

  “Lie down, Laura.”

  Laura stumbles, slides down onto the mink-covered bed. Decca blows out the lantern and lies down too. But the women are facing away from each other. Each is waiting for the other to touch her the way Max did. There is a long silence. Laura weeps, softly, but Decca laughs out loud, whacks Laura on the buttock.

  “Good night, you fat-assed sap.”

  In just a short time, Decca is asleep. Laura leaves quietly, arrives home and showers, dresses before her children wake up.

  NOËL, 1974

  Dear Dearest Zelda, I’m sorry your vacation comes at such a bad time for us. Christmas, school, etc. I’m a teacher now—will be grading term papers and working on a Christmas play. We have a very small house. The landlord thinks I only have two sons, for the two small bedrooms, so when he comes one of them has to disappear. Ben (he’s 19 now!) sleeps in the garage. Keith (17) sleeps on the couch in the living room. Joel has a small bedroom, a closet really, and I have the other one. I know you say you’ll be happy to sleep on the floor, but a friend of Ben’s, from New Mexico (Jesse), is already sleeping on the living room floor. I’d love to see you but present circumstances would make it uncomfortable for everyone. I’m happy to hear about your new life. Love, Maggie

  “Now is that an assertive letter or not?” Maggie recopied it, put it in an envelope and outside for the mailman.

  “Who is Aunt Zelda anyway?” Joel asked.

  “Your father’s big sister. Really big. I only met her once, at a bar mitzvah in Rhode Island. Her daughter Mabel is at Cal but her commune has a rule about no parents. I run into Mabel sometimes and she’s great, but she’s gay now and dreads telling her mother. Well, Zelda can’t come here and that’s it.”

  But Zelda came anyway, six days later, with a schefflera plant and three pounds of lox. Mabel met her at the airport and dropped her off, said she’d see her later. Maggie greeted Zelda stiffly, introduced her to Joel, who carried the bags up to Maggie’s room. Zelda followed him up, to unpack.

  Ben, Keith, and Jesse were playing poker in the garage. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on the stereo.

  “What will I do with her? What if she stays for Christmas?”

  Jesse stretched his boots out on the bed. “Want me to leave, Maggie? Early, I mean—I’ll be going before Christmas.”

  “No, of course not. We told you you were welcome. It’s that I told her she wasn’t. Ballsy bitch.”

  Joel knocked on the door and came in.

  “Cheer up, Ma, guess what Aunt Zelda is doing?”

  “God knows.”

  “Washing dishes. We got us a nice Jewish mama.”

  “But I want a Japanese houseboy.” Maggie laughed though and followed him inside.

  Zelda was a new woman. She had lost seventy pounds since her divorce, had had her ears pierced and a tubal ligation. “I’m prepped for adventure!” she said and Maggie giggled, envisioning shaved private parts. Zelda was determinedly cheerful, hugging everybody and repeating things like “Far out!” and “Outta sight!”

  Keith moved upstairs into Joel’s room and Joel moved downstairs to the couch above Jesse’s sleeping bag. Maggie slept in the hammock in the dining room. She didn’t have the time nor the energy to entertain Zelda. Mabel didn’t either, busy in school and rebuilding a VW engine. But Zelda was determined to have a good time and she did. She went to Gump’s and I. Magnin and Cost Plus. She took the Sausalito ferry, rode cable cars, lunched at Jack London Square. The rest of the time she washed dishes, not just the dirty dishes but all of the dishes and pots and pans in the cupboards, relining the shelves. She defrosted the refrigerator, ironed. Jesse wouldn’t let her clean the living room while he was there, writing music, playing the guitar. She wouldn’t let him walk on her waxed kitchen floor. Keith called them the Odd Couple. But it was working out okay, Maggie admitted. Stuffed cabbage would be simmering when she got home exhausted from school. Zelda prepared hors d’oeuvres, bought cheese and wine for Fun Time, which was every night. (Her husband had sold Fun Time party mixes.)

  Ben made jewelry that he sold on Telegraph after school. Afterward he would come home with four or five street artists. Greg the glassmaker, always. Keith’s girl, Lauren, came every night, usually with other girls, to meet Jesse the handsome, lanky longhair from New Mexico. Lee was always there, a Chicano biker whose leather clothes had zippers that rang like Russian sleighs. Lee played harmonica and bongos, flirted with Mabel. He didn’t realize she was gay as she encouraged him, for Zelda’s sake, while she rubbed thighs under the spool coffee table with her lover, frizzy-haired Big Mac. Big Mac sang; Mabel and Jesse played guitars.

  Aunt Zelda laughed, glowed, choked on marijuana. Keith and Lauren sat at the dining room table, doing homework, playing chess while Maggie graded papers, read for the next day’s classes, sipping Jim Beam which she kept separate from the Fun Time beer and wine.

  Joel and his friends went up and down stairs. Stereos and radios, televisions and guitars and bongos and harmonicas and electric football. The washing machine and the dryer and the pachinko machine. Maggie wrote notes in the margins, worried about money and the landlord. She had spent all her salary on Christmas presents, sold the last of her Zuni jewelry for the rent. She was tense and tired and she missed her bed, was afraid it would forever smell of Estée Lauder.

  “Too much!” Zelda said when Maggie joined her by the fire. Zelda was flushed and teary, listening to Mabel and Big Mac doing “Lay, Lady, Lay.” She blew her nose. “I don’t ever want to go home!” she said. Jesse grinned at Maggie, who crossed her eyes at him. He asked her to hand him the keys to the truck, on the mantel. When he opened the front door the air was cool, the rain quiet. The pickup truck double-clutched, backed out of the driveway. Maggie went outside too. She and Chata, the dog, walked in the empty BART parking lot, neither one avoiding puddles. Chata heard the truck first, shifting down.

  “Going my way, lady?”

  “Hi, Jesse. Sure. I just came out for some air.”

  “You knew I’d pick you up. Get in. No, not you, Chata. Dawg, get out of here.” Took two blocks to lose the dog.

  Miles of deserted streets in southwest Oakland. It was good to get away from the house and she liked the way he never spoke. She started to say something about Zelda, but he interrupted her.

  “I don’t want to hear about Zelda, or your kids or your school.”

  “That doesn’t leave me anything to talk about.”

  “Right.” He reached behind the seat for a Jim Beam bottle, took a sip, and handed it to her.

  “Your drinking scares me, Jesse. Seventeen is too young to be an alcoholic.”

  “I’m old for my age. Thirty-five is young to be a burnout.”

  They ended up in the U.S. Mail depot in West Oakland. Blocks of parked trailer trucks, each labeled for a different state of the union.

  “Howdja get in here?” the man in Louisiana asked, but went back to sorting mail. Jesse and Maggie strolled from state to state. She wanted to find New York; he went to Wyoming, Mississippi. The first word she had learned to spell. Uncle John taught her. The wind blew around the New Mexico trailer but there was no sound, just the bird flutter of letters. They watched the man sorting, silent,
as if they were on the other side of a window. “Better get out of here,” the New Mexico man said. They hadn’t seen the DO NOT ENTER sign when they came in. As they were driving out a little guard came out of a booth signaling them to stop.

  “Get down out of the truck,” he said, but when they did they were both so tall he stammered, “Get back in the truck!” He began talking on his radio, groping for his gun. Jesse shifted and drove away, fast. Zing, a bullet hit the bumper. “Hot damn!” Maggie laughed. An adventure.

  When they got home everyone had gone to bed. Jesse got right into his sleeping bag by the fire, coals now. Maggie still had stacks of papers to grade, sipped Jim Beam to stay awake.

  Christmas busy. Jesse and Ben sold jewelry on Telegraph, doing well in spite of the rain. Maggie and Joel stayed late at their schools, both practicing for Christmas programs. Maggie had written a parody of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge had a used-car lot in Hayward; Tiny Tim was a militant paraplegic. It was fun, hectic.

  Aunt Zelda shopped. In the evenings she helped Maggie bake and wrap presents, chattering on about her new self-image, about finding a new relationship. Maggie was silent. Zelda assumed that Maggie simply suffered from a broken heart, but that everything would turn out all right.

  “Any day now my brother will come to his senses. You were a gorgeous couple. I’ll never forget the two of you at Marvin’s bar mitzvah. So happy! And you in that suit. Norell?”

  “B. H. Wragge.” That was a good suit.

  “And the way he used to always light two cigarettes at a time and hand you yours.”

  Maggie laughed. “He got that from John Garfield.” Only Shelley Berman did it better—he’d forget to give the woman hers, just nervously smoked both of them. Come to his senses? One’s senses. Taste smell hearing touch.

  “I’ve taken leave of my senses,” Maggie said.