Bystanders

by Tara Laskowski

  Myra had never skied in her life, so she just smiled, tugged at her sweater. She was still wearing her maternity jeans, and so she was jealous when Elly bent over to pull her child out and Myra could see the clean waistband of Elly’s tight jeans. They had nothing in common.

  “How’s your little one?” Elly asked.

  “Oh, she’s great. Cranky sometimes, but you know. There’s something I wanted—”

  Elly slung her purse over her shoulder and locked the car. “Oh my, I know. They are definitely a handful, aren’t they? Well, nice seeing you again.” She turned to go, then stopped. “Oh, hey, that monitor thing. I noticed it, too.”

  Myra found herself flushing. “Oh no.”

  “Yeah, a few times. That’s really annoying, isn’t it? We think we’re going to probably stop using ours anyway, so your problem should go away.”

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I keep seeing people—other people. An older boy really.”

  Elly frowned. “So it’s not us? That’s so weird. Because I know for sure it’s Eva’s room. We can see the name above the crib.” Then she stopped, paused. “I’m sorry—I know it’s awkward.”

  Myra tried to shrug. Eva was shifting, fussing. Hungry again.

  “It never ends, does it?” Elly said, smiling. “Always something to do!”

  “True, too much. Our house is a disaster.”

  “Oh, I know. Especially with people staying over, right? I mean, they try to help, but it just sometimes makes much more work.” Elly paused. “Is she sleeping any better?”

  “Not really,” Myra said. She thought about the doctor, wondered if Elly made lists. Wondered if Elly had pills. There’s a little boy in your house. A ghost boy. The words sounded ridiculous, and despite herself, Myra let out a little laugh.

  Elly paused, but didn’t acknowledge the laugh. “Yeah, it’s tough. But at least you have help, right? I mean, with Corey working long hours and such. Having a nanny must be a huge help.”

  Myra felt herself getting hot. “A nanny?”

  “But, hey, let’s try to get that coffee sometime, yes?” Elly said, moving away. “My afternoons are usually easier than mornings.”

  “We don’t have a nanny.”

  “Oh crap, there I go, sticking my foot in my trap again. Well, I was jealous that you had found someone to hire to help, especially at night like that.” She laughed, then caught herself. “I mean, it’s not like I was spying on you guys or anything. Jeez. Just that one night it woke me up, the other night, I guess Eva was crying, and I was confused, you know, because I thought it was Liam, and I saw her—your sister or friend or whoever—rocking her and I just was a little jealous—well, no, I guess glad for you that you were getting some rest. Ha ha.”

  “Rocking her?” Myra’s heart started pounding. She felt for a moment like she might faint, but then the world righted itself again.

  “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. We can get another monitor, or stop using it or whatever.”

  On her shoulder, Eva started crying then, kicking at her side. Trying to get away. The baby was biting her own lip, pushing, looking up across the street at their house, up toward her own bedroom window. Myra wasn’t certain, but she thought she saw her baby smile.

  “Myra? You okay?”

  And Myra could see her then, a silhouette, just a hint of some hair and a hand raised, not in a wave, but just up, pressed against the window perhaps. “Ann Marie,” she said quietly, and from a great distance she heard Elly say, “What?” But then, no, there was no one—just Corey, crossing the bay windows in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, his shoulders hunched forward, talking into his cell. Myra blinked several times, looked at Elly again. “Your baby,” she said, remembering now the neighbor’s story about the miscarriage, the little boy that should’ve been.

  “He’s right here,” Elly said, her smile wavering, backing up a little. “Maybe you should go inside?”

  Myra shook her head, reaching out her hand. There was something, she was beginning to understand, and yet still none of it made any sense. “Your baby,” she said again. “The one that died.”

  Now Elly flinched, put a hand instinctively over Liam’s head and moved back. “What? You—” she shook her head. “How do you even know?” she hissed.

  What was it then? Their fears? Their nightmares? Eva’s wails grew louder, more insistent, and she pushed herself back, nearly causing Myra to drop her. Myra steadied herself, looked into Elly’s eyes, and smiled. The wind kicked up then, howling as it rushed between the houses. It had a bitterness to it, that first hint of winter. The cold had arrived, and it was settling in.

  Happy and Humpy

  If You’re Happy and You Know It…

  Her mother named her Happy, hoping it would determine her fate. Happy Prudence McDonald, and for a while there in college Happy tried to introduce herself as Pru, but Happy always stuck. Even after her sister was killed, people called her Happy. And she hardly ever smiled.

  She met him at a bar. They were both at the jukebox. She was looking for Kansas songs and he needed a place to set down his beer. His name was Benedict Humphreys, but all his friends called him Humpy.

  He had a fat face, the kind of face that former frat guys got from drinking too much beer, but he said someone named Happy should always have fresh flowers. She would remember that for many years, even though Humpy would never buy her flowers. Never once. Not even for their wedding, at the courthouse, with all that traffic from the interstate roaring by outside the window.

  If I Told You, I’d Have to Kill You

  Humpy made his living writing greeting cards, bumper stickers, and t-shirt slogans—he was always good at the trite, he joked. That glib attitude made everyone laugh. He had the obvious, self-depreciating joke that broke the ice at the party. “Guess I shouldn’t have worn these leather boxers on such a hot day” or “I was really rockin’ my Meatloaf CD on the way over here.”

  He wrote the same joke five million different ways. Ha ha, you’re Old. Over the Hill. Geezer Sneezer. Feeling Forgetful? Wrinkles? Gray Hair! On dud days, he just did funny pictures of animals.

  When Happy told him her name, he said, “Wow, that’s sad.” She said, “I’ve never heard that one before.” He said, “What’s your last name? Birthday?” She said, “What’s your last name? Dipshit?” After the bar they went to McDonalds and he asked if she wanted “her meal.” She took so long in the bathroom that he was sure she’d ditched him, and then she was there, standing over the small table with attached swiveling plastic seats that always reminded Humpy of grade school. She said, “Move over Humpy Dumpy, I need me a french fry fix,” and he was pretty sure then that he loved her.

  Is That a Burden in Your Pants,

  or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

  When they were kids, Happy followed her sister everywhere. So when their daddy brought them to his work picnic, out in the country, out where people kept horses and painted barns and mowed fields, she followed her sister behind the picnic grounds, down a dirt path she’d found. Her sister said, you have to come see, cows, millions of them. It had rained the day before and their pretty dresses from Belk’s were brown at the edges, their shoes ruined, but it didn’t matter. Happy followed her sister’s back, trailing behind even though she was one year and three months older. Followed her bouncing, dirty-brown ponytail, a little damp, to where the cows were, not a million, but maybe a dozen just beyond a silly little wire fence. Their breaths like puffs in the cool air. Come, come, her sister said, approaching the fence. We can pet them. She’d smiled, already moving, the energy in her body too much for her bones. Happy remembered her sister always in motion. And before Happy could say anything, her sister shimmied under the fence, catching her elbow on the bottom wire. A bad game of limbo, really. If it hadn’t rained. If she hadn’t been caught underneath, maybe just a little zap, like
the animals were supposed to get if they tried to stray.

  Not the smell of burning. Not out here, where the dandelions popped like smiley faces. The world ending, like that. Like the shimmer of a fake movie backdrop in the wind. Like the glare from the flash of a camera on an otherwise perfect picture. Like the beauty of poison ivy, the softness of a cat belly before its claws dig in, the swiftness of a moving current, the shine of a sharp knife. Like a poof of cow’s breath in the cool air.

  Home Is Where Your Beer Is

  He created the house for her. It was built on a small pond just outside of town. All that wood and steel, it still amazes her to think of it. He bought her a dog, too, to have something to run around that fenced-in yard. Across the pond, you could see the movie theater, a big multiplex kind of place that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie when it was all lit up at night.

  She was grateful to him. For the porch with the rocker and the deluxe toaster oven and the walk-in closets and sunken tub. He added a huge bathroom with a his-and-hers suite; a powder room, he called it. And she would’ve loved it, would’ve spent many happy hours there staring at her reflection with those lights, a line of exposed bulbs like the movie stars had in their dressing rooms, if the light switch didn’t give her a mild shock every time she went to turn it on. Her mind turned on him. She began to think it was on purpose. A cruel joke.

  She grew tired of dirty shoes in the middle of the hallway. Of cigarette ashes in the garden, black hairs like ants in the bathroom sink. The smell of Humpy’s cologne on his sweaty clothes. She resented the April Fools’ jokes every year—plastic wrap on the toilet, a fake winning lottery ticket, a stuffed rat under her pillow. When he laughed, she scowled, and then his hurt face, like a toddler. “Can’t you take a joke?”

  What if the Hokey Pokey IS What It’s All About?

  They went back once, Happy and Humpy, and trampled through the high, tick-filled grass, the path overgrown since the grove owners sold the place. The fence that killed her sister was much smaller than Happy remembered it, and the field was really just a patch of farmland for those cows, only six of them there that day. Cows are so dirty up close, their white fur matted and muddy. They make stupid noises. Their teeth all crooked. As Happy and Humpy stood there watching, one cow took a shit without warning and then stepped in it. Humpy wanted to touch her. He kept trying to hold her hand, put a heavy, lumpy palm on her back. “Jesus Christ, these mosquitoes,” he said, swatting, a droplet falling from his nose.

  Weather’s Here, Wish You Were Hot

  Six years after they got divorced, Humpy ran into Happy at the post office. At first she looked at him, then past him, not recognizing him at all, and that, more than anything else, was the lowest moment of his life. He had the urge to slap himself with stamps and mail himself away, anywhere. He had lost some weight, sure, but weren’t people supposed to be able to recognize others in milliseconds simply from the way they shift in line or walk or cough? Happy was struggling with two large boxes and Humpy knew, without even seeing the address labels, that they were for her two cousins that lived in Missouri, whose birthdays were only one day apart. The tag was sticking out of the back of her t-shirt and you could see the outline of her bra across her back. Those bras, with their stiff cups like mountain ranges on the carpet. He always wanted to drink a beer out of those bras. He hated them, always in white or tan, never any lace or satin, hated them so very much and at that moment, there in the post office, he longed for them.

  Then she turned again and this time when she caught his eye he saw the recognition, saw the shift in her posture and the color in her cheeks. Her mouth opened in a surprised “O” and he could see where the lipstick had started to wear off. She smiled at him and he nodded, but they waited in electric silence until both were out of line.

  “You’re looking well,” he said.

  “You too,” she said. “Lost weight?”

  He nodded. He tried to come up with something funny, something stupid. Nothing. His brain was mush.

  “Well, I should go,” she said.

  “Happy—” he said, then stopped, flustered. She waited, blinking her eyes through bangs. He shook his head. “It’s just, well, your tag is out.” And he reached behind and fixed it.

  Families Are Like Brownies—

  Sweet, with a Few Nuts Here and There

  She stopped going to the Sacred Heart ladies’ meetings because of the vibe. She thought they all talked behind her back about how she only remarried Humpy because of the baby. Her bun in the oven, as Humpy liked to say. This may have been true, but she didn’t want to feel judged in a house of worship.

  Besides, after Daria, she had no time to make pierogies and go to quilt bingo. Daria gave her a sense of purpose, a nice clockworked day in which to spend her time. Humpy did his part, buying Daria ironic onesies that said things like, “Little Poo Factory” and “I’m the Reason Daddy Drinks.” When Happy went back to work, Humpy got up at 3:00 a.m. to feed their daughter a bottle and learned how to install the monitor, but he left everything else up to Happy and she liked it that way.

  They were probably too old to have a baby. Over the hill. It inspired Humpy so much he started a new line—Geezer Parents—and that turned into gag gifts for baby showers, things like diapers with large print and arrows, burp cloths with pockets for your dentures, and baby rattle pill containers. Humpy sold the whole line to a major party store chain and quit his job to become a stay-at-home dad.

  Sometimes at night after the baby went to bed, Happy and Humpy would sit on the front porch together sipping iced tea they’d spiked with vodka. It was never quite the perfect night—always a little too cold or too warm—but it wasn’t so much to complain about. Happy would look out at the pond, at that brightly lit movie theater across the way, and start to feel restless. She would say something like, “If only I’d never met you, I could’ve been a star. Could’ve been in those movies, famous and glamorous, you know.” And Humpy would sigh, a sound that picked off a piece of her soul like a chisel to ice.

  “I know,” he’d say. “You could’ve been something.”

  And then she would laugh, too hard, and poke him in the chest. “I’m just kidding, you dummy. Can’t you take a joke?”

  The Cat-Sitter

  It was going to rain at any moment. Sullivan had risked getting caught in the downpour and instead of taking the subway had chosen to walk so he could stop at his girlfriend’s favorite florist on his way to see her. He didn’t mind walking, and he didn’t mind the rain, really. It had been ten years since he’d moved to the city, and it still didn’t get old to wander around, admiring all the massive buildings and important people surrounding him.

  He and Alicia hadn’t been dating for long, and the thought of seeing her still excited him. Sullivan liked her apartment building, too. He had once watched someone’s cat in the same building where Alicia lived, only on a different floor. Every time he visited, he thought about himself, ten years ago, doing all sorts of odd jobs and wondering if he was going to make it. It gave him a sense of accomplishment to dwell on this, to think about how far he’d come since then, going from scooping out litter boxes to managing the front desk at one of the premier hotels in town. He liked walking so he had time to think about all of this.

  As Sullivan approached Alicia’s block, a little bunch of Gerbera daisies in hand, a high wind kicked up, skittering newspapers and paper cups across the sidewalk. He held the flowers close to his chest. Alicia had told him once that she never bought flowers for herself even though she loved them. “Flowers are like jewelry. You should know what you like, but let someone else buy it for you.” A line of children in bathing suits filed out of the gate surrounding a city park, colorful beach towels around their bodies, as an adult urged them forward. “I said the pool’s closed, hurry before it starts to pour.” The air felt heavy, unbreathable, but it made Sullivan strangely happy. He felt the potentia
l in it, the feeling that something important was about to happen. As he rounded the corner, a few fat drops landed on his shoulders and his cheeks, and then just as he stepped under the awning of Alicia’s apartment building, the storm clattered down, soaking the hot sidewalks in steam, and Sullivan stepped into the cool air conditioning of the building, picking up his pace now that he was so close to seeing her.

  ***

  Alicia’s apartment was small but tidy. She had an abundance of mismatched furniture. She was fond of collecting things—an orange velvet couch from her grandmother, a rocking chair from the thrift store, a set of ceramic figurines posed on top of a bookcase, and a La-Z-Boy recliner that her dad had bought her when she graduated from college. She collected friends, too, and invited them over for dinner parties like she was a curator selecting from her finest and most eclectic paintings. Sullivan had only been included in a few of those meals so far and he’d felt a bit lost at sea trying to keep up with the conversation, which included much ado about the latest plays and movies (many of Alicia’s friends were actors or artists, like herself, who were trying to make it big in one way or another). Her friends had been kind, but distant, as though Sullivan was the latest of Alicia’s oddities—one of the figurines found dusty on the back shelf of a thrift store. He was always mildly surprised each time she called him to go out again.

  “Which shoes should I wear?” Alicia paced around in her bare feet, holding two shoes—one a deep blue stiletto and the other a zebra print heel with a pink bow on the toe. She did not take the flowers, but she did smile at them.

  It was her hair that Sullivan admired, always different, always changing. Today it was piled on top of her head in a nest of tiny tiny braids. Last time he’d seen her, she’d had a sleek bob that accented her long thin neck.

  “Whichever ones are sturdier,” he said, smiling, an in-joke between them, but if she got it, she didn’t react. She disappeared into her bedroom and he looked around for somewhere to put the flowers. It was how he’d met Alicia—imagine his luck!—one of her famously high-heeled shoes had snapped off in a grating outside his hotel just as she was about to meet a friend for lunch. Part of his front desk duties was to make sure all guests and visitors of the hotel were comfortable, and they actually had several pairs of women’s shoes in the back room for these types of emergencies (many of them were unclaimed shoes left in the rooms). “Where were you going again that day?” he called to her, turning, and was startled to see her standing right in front of him again, a few inches taller with the deep blue shoes. He lowered his voice, smiling. “That day, when your shoe broke? Who were you meeting again?”