Disasters in the First World

by Olivia Clare

  “His Lucy party?” Andrew says it slowly, rubbing his weak beard. “I could show up. I don’t know. I’ve been around those people most of my life. To be blunt, I think my father doesn’t want you there.”

  “That’s not what I was told.”

  “Suit yourself. I might be going to a house party on Hoffman.”

  “House parties in this town are rubbish,” she says.

  “Yes, well, we should meet up. I’m friends with lots of faculty’s kids, you know. We’ve got a merry gang. They’d probably like you. Anyway, we all come in for winter break, only I’m back early. Nobody knows that yet.”

  He’s been tapping the toe of his boot against the bookshelf, making scuffs at the bottom of the blond wood. He’s shorter than Edward and more animated, in small ways. She likes this. Likes it quite a bit.

  “By the way, don’t tell my father you saw me here,” he says.

  “In town?”

  “Of course he knows I’m in town. I live with him. Just don’t tell him I was at the bookstore. I’m not ever supposed to be here.”

  “What? Why can’t you be at the bookstore?” says Nola.

  “Long story,” he says.

  Charlie’s house—cold floors, dark shellac, art deco mirrors. A square table in the hall with a bowl of Brazil nuts, bottles of rum and wine.

  “Why not?” Roman’s unzipping his jacket, taking off his hat. His hair is thick and white. “I’m going to bring it up next Tuesday. I mean, no one’s stopping you know who from teaching a whole course on—”

  “You know her name,” says Eric. He’s a short man in saggy pants and a shirt.

  “If Amy insists on teaching a whole course on—” says Roman.

  “You mean ‘Sex and—”

  “—Television,’ then why not?”

  Nola’s at the dining room table—spiced apples, apple candles, turkey, glazed ham, stuffing with apricots, miniature truffles, Scottish tea.

  With a full plate, she leaves the dining room. In Charlie’s living room, a large, red-faced man with tartan socks holds a plate of turkey and ham on his lap. One of two women in wobbly, doll-like chairs turns to Nola.

  “You came with Edward, right?”

  “Yes,” says Nola.

  “Charlie invited you? I’m Molly, Eric’s wife. This is Katherine.”

  “It’s so cold in here,” Katherine says, hunching, pushing her skirt down over her knees. There are dark red veins in her eyes.

  “And I’ve got some kind of cramp. Excuse me, but I do,” says Molly. She overpronounces her words.

  “Christ, how weird,” says Katherine. “I have a cramp, too. I wonder if our cycles are aligned.”

  “I don’t know but I’m ready for the Lucy rolls.”

  “What’s Lucy?” Nola says.

  Molly looks as if she might say something else but then finishes her eggnog and places the glass between her knees. She buttons the top button of her sweater.

  “Saint Lucy. Nola, sit down,” Molly says. “We’re curious about Edward—he’s very unpredictable, we think.”

  Again, the questions about Edward. From the corner, a seventy-five-year-old Chaucer scholar Nola didn’t notice clears her throat in two ascending notes, the second with a slightly whimsical adornment, while holding her mouth in a curious bassoonist’s embouchure. Saint-Saëns’s “The Dying Swan” plays on the stereo.

  “I drink tea,” the Chaucerian says. “It’s full of antioxidants. I’d love tea if I didn’t drink it every day,” she continues. “But I drink it every day because I like it so much.” Her mouth gives way to slight spasms at its corners. The red-faced man in tartan socks nods politely.

  “That’s very true, Diana,” Katherine says loudly, with unintended condescension, as if speaking to a great-aunt from whom one stands to inherit a small house or large jewel. “Tea is a great pleasure for us all.”

  “The paintings are awful.” Molly gives a hissing sound. She squeezes the tassels of her scarf, then wraps the whole scarf around her neck in three turns. “But I’m not going to say that to Charlie. It would hurt him. I wonder if he has some kind of muscle relaxer. I really do have a cramp.”

  Nola walks by a side table with a photo of Andrew in profile, his nose pointed toward a huddle of wary new fellows and their husbands in a corner. She enters the screened-off patio.

  “Hello.” Roman’s smoking in a wicker chair. He’s wearing a black T-shirt. He’s stuck his long legs out so that Nola must walk over his feet to the other side of the patio. “Are you eating? What good things Charlie has. I like turkey very much. Do you?”

  “I do,” she says.

  “Oh, you do?” He’s encouraged. “You like turkey?”

  “Yes, with stuffing.”

  “I like stuffing. All that with rum. Christmas rum sent down from Jesus. Cookies, you like those?”

  “You sound like Edward,” she says.

  “What about . . . bread and butter?” Roman sits up in his chair.

  He’s obnoxious, she thinks. Would she ever have been charmed by him?

  “Bread with butter?” she says.

  “It’s simple, I know, but it’s overlooked. I try not to overlook anything.”

  Edward’s at the doorway. “I didn’t know you were out here. Aren’t you cold?”

  “We were just talking about our favorite foods,” Roman says.

  “Foods?” Edward comes to Nola and says the word softly, drowsily.

  “Nola seems to like all foods equally,” Roman says.

  “I didn’t say that,” says Nola.

  “No? I thought you did.”

  “This is an odd misunderstanding,” Edward says.

  “There’s no such thing as an odd misunderstanding,” Roman says. “No such thing as a normal one.”

  “Roman—”

  “We were having a conversation, Edward, and I don’t even like conversation.”

  “Doing all right?” Edward talks directly into Nola’s ear. He thinks he needs to look after her, but he knows so little of what she needs now. Once, she thought he knew.

  “Edward.” Charlie’s at the porch door. He’s in the same brown suit as before. “Hello, Nola. Roman. Edward, I need to speak with you”—working his jowls—“let’s come inside.”

  “Not tonight,” Edward says. “I’m feeling a little funny now.”

  “I don’t mind leaving early,” Nola says.

  “Charlie, that meeting the other day. It was . . . ,” Roman says, “not to be repeated, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Well I’ve spoken with Edward about it, haven’t I?” Charlie says. “Spoken with a few others. We’ll figure it out. Edward, let’s come inside and talk.”

  “Charlie, what is this?” Eric shouts from the house.

  “That isn’t the point,” Roman says.

  “Charlie?” Eric shouts. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Let’s go in.” Edward takes Nola’s elbow. “You coming?”

  “All right,” she says. “Let’s go soon, okay? Leave the party, I mean.”

  “Of course,” says Edward.

  Roman rises from the wicker chair. “I’ll go with you.”

  Roman, Edward, and Nola walk into the house to hear Eric shouting: “Hey, Charlie! Come in here a second!”

  Eric’s in the dining room, a plate of food in his hand. He’s in front of a shelf the length of the wall, examining an antique pistol in a faux velvet cushioned case with a glass hatch.

  “It’s a funny thing for you to have,” says Eric. He inserts an entire dreidel-shaped cookie into his mouth and chews it while readying his right hand with another from his plate.

  “It came from my grandfather’s farm in Pennsylvania,” says Charlie, extracting the pistol from its transparent coffin. “I asked for it when he died.” Edwa
rd takes the gun in his one drinkless hand and grasps the barrel. Nola grabs Edward’s shoulder.

  “I’ve heard about these Pennsylvania farms,” says Roman. “I knew a man who had one, in fact. On a Pennsylvania farm, you’ve got to have a certain number of animals to have the privilege of calling it a farm. You’ve got to have that amount. No matter what. So this man I knew lived in New York. He hired a couple of guys to look after his Pennsylvania farm. A couple of rascals. I met these guys in Pennsylvania.

  “I spent a weekend there,” says Roman. “Anyway, there weren’t enough animals on the farm. Now the man with the property—this was a smart man, a lawyer in New York—needed a farm for tax purposes. So how do you think he did it? How did he have enough animals?”

  “What does this have to do with anything?” says Nola.

  Katherine comes into the room, leading the Chaucerian, shuffling clumsily, toward the bathroom.

  “Goodness, a gun,” says Diana. Her long skirt is stained with cranberry. “No, I don’t feel well at all. Not one minute of it or any of them.”

  “Please, it would be a good idea to calm down,” says Katherine. She’s dabbing at Diana’s skirt with a red, crumpled napkin as they walk. Katherine’s eyes are hazy, without focus.

  “Can I help?” says Nola.

  “We’re okay,” says Katherine. She shuts the bathroom door.

  “He brought in goats?” says Edward, turning to Roman. “Lots of goats?”

  “Not goats,” Roman says. “How else do you think the lawyer did it? For the farm?”

  “Hired more rascals,” says Eric.

  “No,” Roman says. “Rabbits.” His eyes become larger. “Rabbits.”

  Edward stares at the stripes on Roman’s sleeve. “Where the hell did you get that shirt?”

  “What do you mean?” says Roman. “This is my boring shirt.”

  “Before I forget,” says Charlie, coming between them. “Time for these.” He uncovers a tray of saffron rolls beneath their noses. “Lussekatt, Lucy buns. I made these. We’re a week early now for Saint Lucy’s Day, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “It occurs to me,” says Roman, with a slow lilt. “Every year we have little Lucy rolls, but aren’t we supposed to have a procession? With a Lucy to lead us? Charlie, you’re half-Swedish, isn’t that what’s done?”

  “Yes, there’s a Lucy,” Charlie says. “She wears a crown with candles.”

  “Well it’s our first Lucy party,” says Roman, “where I believe we have a Lucy, gentlemen.”

  Nola knows he is looking at her but refuses to look back. She wouldn’t mind being Lucy, but she minds Roman.

  “That isn’t a good idea.” Charlie pulls apart an S-shaped roll and squeezes it nervously into his mouth.

  “Roman,” says Edward very loudly, sloshing a bit of the nog from his cup. “That’s not the point. I’m talking about your shirt. It’s making me damn dizzy.”

  “You ought to be grateful,” Roman says. “We have Lucy.”

  “As long as nobody sings,” says Edward. “I don’t want anyone to sing.”

  “You’re our Lucy,” Roman says to Nola.

  “I got that,” she says.

  “You know Lucy,” Roman says. “Lucy our saint. All right, now what you’re going to do is walk around in a circle while we sing. Eric was a chorus boy, an asthmatic chorus boy, but nevertheless. So, Nola, walk all around. There you are. We don’t have any candles. Charlie, start singing?”

  “I don’t want Charlie to sing,” says Edward.

  “No thank you, Roman,” says Charlie. “I won’t sing.”

  “But what are the words?” says Roman.

  “I remember,” says Eric.

  Edward bites a saffron roll while Eric sings “Santa Lucia” in his countertenor. Roman takes out a lighter and flicks the flame and hands the lighter to Nola. She walks the perimeter of the room, holding the flame just below her chin, laughing a little. Charlie looks impatient.

  “Edward,” says Charlie.

  “Roman, you sing, too,” Eric says.

  “No thanks,” Roman says. “Quite winded.”

  “All of us,” Edward says. “Sit down!”

  “Edward, please.” Charlie takes Edward’s arm. “Edward, come now. Time for our talk.”

  They go, coatless, through the porch door, under bare branches, into the snow, not vanishing as it hits the ground. Edward no longer feels drunk; this is something else. In the house what sounds like a wineglass breaks.

  “What was that?” Charlie says.

  “Snowflakes,” says Edward. “They’re strobing. Water’s coming off at different angles.”

  “Jesus, how much have you had?” Charlie looks at Edward’s glass. “Listen, I’ve been wanting us to talk. You can probably guess what it is.” Charlie walks ahead to a shrub covered in long flanks of snow and stops, and Edward sways as he walks. No, this isn’t drunkenness. He doesn’t know what this is.

  “No, Charlie,” says Edward. “It is I who must speak with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Charles, what’s this?” He points to Charlie’s head.

  “What’s what?” says Charlie.

  “It isn’t even you. It isn’t even yours.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Right there. I guess I have to try to pull it off.” Edward throws his glass in the snow. With spread hands, he grabs Charlie’s head, as if to heal a sinner at an evangelical revival.

  “Edward, really, what the hell?”

  Edward lurches back. Charlie is talking; Edward doesn’t understand. Edward sprints to the house.

  “They’re spotted. It’s just bad art.” At the center of a small crowd, Molly makes large, vague swipes at her right hand with her left. Her sweater is on the floor. Both straps of her dress have fallen from her shoulders. “Eric, let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

  “Molly! Molly, quit.” Eric whispers in her ear. “Please just put your cup down.”

  “Little bits of cinnamon, I swear,” she says. “I tried to lick them off at first, didn’t I, Katherine? Katherine? Where is she? Where’d she go?” She begins to weep. “What ages me?”

  “Eric, do you feel all right?” Charlie says.

  “I’m fine,” Eric says.

  “Who the Jesus put so many mirrors in this house?” says Roman. “Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight, forty-seven . . . It’s like an orgy in here, so many redundant bodies, no sex. But never the sex. Never the sex? Christ, something’s finally wrong with me.”

  “Roman, please. What in God’s name is happening here?” says Charlie. “What’s wrong with Edward?”

  “Strange cock,” says Edward. “Very strange cock. I swear it isn’t even yours. Right there on your head, Charles.”

  Everyone looks at Charlie, except the fellows and the new hire, and their three husbands, the six of them standing together, largely mute, until one of the husbands, a young, stooped man, who after looking around the room as if for a bit of confidence, raises his right arm triumphantly and shouts, “My ribs are swollen!”

  “I know what I smell—it’s opopanax!” says Edward. He attempts to unzip Nola’s purse, hanging from her shoulder.

  “Someone’s put LSD in the eggnog,” says the husband with swollen ribs.

  Edward looks at Nola’s hands. Thousands of freckles, freckles on top of freckles.

  “Edward?” says Nola. “You had the eggnog? I didn’t have any.”

  “Christ, he’s right,” says Roman. “It’s fucking LSD. I said this eggnog tasted shit-like.”

  “Calm down, please.” Charlie’s holding Edward by the wrist. “Nobody’s spiked your eggnog.”

  “LSD! It’s LSD. I’m a fucking kid again,” Roman says in the middle of the living room. “Look at all these jerks with cups of nog.”

/>   Molly sits on the sofa, crying with both hands over her mouth.

  “You’re insane,” says Charlie. “You think there’s LSD?”

  The bathroom door slams open—Katherine says, “I’m taking Diana to the hospital. Someone needs to come help me with her. Eric. Do you hear me? Diana’s in the bathroom. Eric.”

  “Jesus Christ,” says Charlie, watching Molly try to stand up. “My kid. Jesus Christ. Andrew. He thinks I won’t have him arrested.”

  The Saint-Saëns recording restarts, and the man in the tartan socks comes into the room with a new plate of turkey and says, “My first wife used to love this piece.”

  Nola’s never driven his car before tonight. Edward takes his badger hat from the glove box and reclines his passenger seat. The roads are full of coarse tracks of snow.

  She knows how he thinks of her, and this is what she takes from him—his myth of her, his subtle romanticization. But she’s through with that. On her first paper he’d written, “Adept.” She thinks that word now. No, she unthinks it. That word is too good for him.

  “Your hair is my wires.” Edward puts on his hat.

  “Close your eyes,” she says. “Lie back down.”

  “Your eyes are witch way hazel. Your witch with berries.”

  “But I’m not the witch,” she says. “Not at all.”

  “I want to tell you what I’m seeing right now.”

  “Tell me.”

  Little Moon

  The three men faced her, seated shoulder to shoulder along a plank against the vibrating steel wall. They called the girl’s small brother Mine.

  Mine, that’s mine, the boy had said to the girl for hours. He slept across their mother’s legs, their mother asleep on another plank, her black skirt crumpled in his fist and tugged above her knees. They were leaving their village in a truck with no windows. A camping lantern swung from a hook. The girl thought it was night, or near that, and she wasn’t tired.

  The truck stopped, no one got up. The amplitude of the lantern’s swing increased. A pale wood crutch lay on the knees of a man, and he took from his pocket a long match and lit it on the crutch’s rubber tip. On his cheek was a violet-black mole the girl imagined might come alive.