by Lucy Finn
“Don’t act so annoyed. I said I’d take care of it.”
“You can’t. The baby changing station is in the ladies’ room, not the men’s. I’m stuck with the job.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Gene insisted.
“I’m not forgetting anything. Brady’s diaper is so stinky that everybody in the store is staring at us. I’ve got to go change him right now.” My voice had taken on a shrill sound.
Gene kissed me on the nose. Then he winked.
“You are not funny,” I announced and turned away to push Brady’s stroller to the nearest bathroom. My eyes had been nearly tearing from the stench of sulfur-laden air rising from Brady’s poopy pants. I was attempting to hold my breath, and I was afraid to look around me. I felt people’s accusing eyes on me and Brady. My cheeks burned red with embarrassment. With my lungs starving for air I had to take a breath, and when I gasped, expecting the worst, I smelled not poop, but roses.
I stopped in my tracks. I took a cautious sniff. The air smelled delicious. I checked Brady’s diaper. It looked completely clean and unused. Gene, on the other hand, looked smug and self-satisfied. “There are advantages to going out with a genie,” he said. “It would serve you well to remember that.”
“I’ll make a mental note,” I answered.
Within a half hour, Gene had his new boots and we were driving back to Noxen. I made a short detour in order to take the interstate instead of the most direct route home. After we drove for a few minutes on that busy highway, the first of acres and acres of decaying cars came into view: London’s Salvage and Junkyard. Cars were stacked five high, one on top of another in shaky pillars of crumpled fenders and smashed wind-shields. In a cleared area, a big crane with a huge hanging magnet on the end picked up a car and dropped it into the crusher, which smashed it into a steel pancake. I couldn’t hear the terrible noise it made except in my imagination, but I got chills watching this mechanized destruction.
Throughout the junkyard, rivulets of rusty water made reddish streams across the bare dirt. A squat white building sat near an eight-foot-high wire mesh fence. I figured that was the office where Joann puffed away on her cancer sticks. Shadows crisscrossed the landscape, exaggerating the size of the jagged pieces of metal that had gouged out a permanent scar in the hills. I shuddered. It was an ugly place with an ugly feel. I couldn’t even begin to guess what it had to do with the gentle fields and happy animals of Jade Meadow Farm.
Once we got back home, Gene took over the care of Brady again. Before I went into my office, I watched him playing a bouncy game with Brady on his knee and holding his hands.
Ride a horse to Melbourne,
Ride a horse to Katherine,
Watch out, Brady,
Don’t fall in!
Then Gene spread his legs to let Brady fall just the slightest little bit before lifting him by his hands and putting the “horses” back under him. Brady squealed and laughed. They were doing it over and over again while I went into the kitchen to get the adhesive tape with Peggy Sue’s phone number and then slipped into my office, shutting the door behind me. I punched in the numbers to call Peggy Sue. The phone rang, but nobody answered, not even one of her kids. Finally a machine picked up and I left a message for her to stop by here around eight a.m. tomorrow before she went to work if that hour was early enough. If not, I asked her to call me and set another time.
I put down the phone receiver and gazed outside the window at the gathering dark. I saw that a fine, light snow had begun to fall. A feathery line of white fanned across the glass before the wind swept it away. I realized that I had forgotten to listen to the weather report. I wondered if the big storm that Peggy Sue had mentioned was due in tonight. My car was not good in the snow even though it had something called “traction control.” I generally avoided using my BMW when the weather got bad. I should trade it in for a vehicle with four-wheel drive.
A wave of uneasiness swept through me. I stood up, suddenly agitated and on edge. I hurried into the living room, where I picked up the remote control.
Without thinking about it, I clicked on the TV to get the news.
“Whoa! What is that? Your own cinema?” Gene asked.
“Oh, it’s television. You missed the years when it developed and became popular all over the world. It’s like radio, only with pictures. But we can play movies on it too, with the DVD player.” Gene gave me a totally blank look. He didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll show you the DVD later. Right now I need to get the weather report.”
Gene stared mesmerized at the screen as the news team sat behind the storm desk on channel 28, our NBC affiliate. They were big at having “desks” on this station. They had a war desk, a flood desk, a bird flu desk. It cracked me up. Now, sitting proudly at the storm desk, Andy Mehalchik, who looked like Alfalfa of the Little Rascals all grown up, was doing a voice-over of clips showing giant salt trucks out after the big blizzard that hit us last March. In a serious tone he warned that we should all be ready because there was a chance tomorrow’s storm, a true nor’easter, could be worse.
I wriggled my way next to Gene on the sofa, and we sat there together, Brady still on Gene’s knees as we watched the rest of the local news. In our valley there is so little crime that a holdup of a convenience store is breaking news. Nothing much ever happens here. As a result, two of the stations actually “shared” their news broadcast, so that it didn’t matter which you watched in the mornings. NBC and CBS had the same news team and show. When they first started doing that, some lady who had bought a new TV took it back to the store because she thought it wouldn’t change the channels. I always thought the arrangement was truly bizarre.
Almost as strange was that they broadcast virtually the same lineup of stories every night. The news always started out with a spectacular car wreck or a heartbreaking fire. A microphone was shoved into the face of a cop or fireman at the scene. Then the reporter found some bereft family wailing and standing in the street, crying that they had lost everything. After that came an in-depth story on the daily cultural event which always had to do with eating, whether it was St. Kashmir’s church bazaar or the Pittston Tomato Festival. The reporter stared into the camera holding food in one hand and took a big bite at the end of the story. At that point, one member of the anchor team asked the reporter to be sure to bring some of the food back to the studio. And at least once a week somebody’s beloved pet was lost, or found, or rescued. I don’t know why anybody bothered to tune in unless it was to see somebody they knew making a fool of himself, staring into the camera like a deer caught in the headlights.
But Gene thought the entire show was great, even the commercials. In fact, he like the commercials best. Finally it was time for the weather, and I learned that although we were going to get the big storm eventually, tonight’s snow should be a light dusting. The heavy snowfall would start tomorrow afternoon and we could get up to a foot or more. The live cam at Wegman’s Supermarket zoomed in on mobs of people grabbing at loaves of bread and other staples. Did people really think they wouldn’t get out of their homes for days? Around this area, citizens panicked every time snow was predicted. I didn’t understand it, but they did.
After the weather I was going to switch off the set, but then I had another idea and got up to put in a DVD of Walk the Line. It was Brady’s favorite movie. As soon as the action started, he started to keep time to the music, pumping his little fists up and down. My mother said he could keep the beat because when I was pregnant I used that listening program that played Mozart and Gregorian chants. Supposedly a fetus could hear music in the womb. But Brady doesn’t react much to the classics. His taste in music runs more to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Emmylou Harris and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He occasionally listened to Enya, but he absolutely loved the opening of this movie, where Johnny Cash is going into Folsom Prison to put on that famous co
ncert.
“Looks like a good film,” Gene said as he watched.
“It is. I can strap Brady into his chair, and he’ll be happy to stare at the screen right to the end. If you’ll sit down here with him, I’ll go get changed for dinner.”
I went to leave the room. Gene caught my hand. “Wait.”
“Why?” I said.
He pulled me down onto his lap. “We have an hour before we have to go,” he said, putting his arms around me.
“We do. And if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, no. For one thing, Brady is awake.”
“I’m a genie, remember? Watch.” Gene winked and a shimmering wall or some kind of curtain fell between where Brady was sitting watching the movie and us. “Brady can’t see us or hear us, but he won’t look for us anyway. If he makes a sudden move or if he needs you, I promise you we’ll know at once.” He burrowed his face between my breasts. “Brady won’t hear us, he’ll be safe, and he’ll be content.”
Suddenly the curtain became opaque and I couldn’t see Brady or the TV. Gene and I seemed totally alone in the room.
I put my hands on Gene’s shoulders to push him away. Touching him was the worst thing I could have done. I could feel the solidness of him beneath my hands. “Gene, I told you before. I don’t want you the way you want me,” I said.
“Don’t lie, Ravine,” he said, inching my sweater up with his hands and undoing my bra. I was weakening fast. My pupils were dilating as I watched what Gene was doing as if hypnotized by him. And indeed I was.
He was speaking in a low, coaxing voice. “I want you. I want you, not just any woman. And you want me. Look how your skin is getting all goose bumps. Your nipples are hard. I want to make love to you. I’m begging you. Please, Ravine,” he coaxed and lifted my sweater far enough to take my nipple into his mouth.
I inhaled quickly, my breath making a sharp sound. The feeling of his lips shot sparks right down through my belly. But I gathered all my will and pushed his lips away and lowered my sweater.
“Look, you,” I said, getting off his lap. “I said don’t before, and I say don’t now. Plus, you promised, or at least suggested, that you would slow down. I don’t know if I want any relationship with you besides that of mistress and genie. Do you understand that?”
Gene sat there studying my face. “Your words are saying one thing and your body is telling me something else,” he said softly. “I hear what both parts of you are saying, though. Let me try to make your mind and heart say the same thing.”
My legs were a bit shaky as I stood there in proximity to Gene, and we were both much too close to the spot where this morning’s lovemaking had happened. “You’re not going to accomplish that by coming on to me like a clumsy adolescent,” I told him as I refastened my bra and made sure my clothing was in order.
“I have a suggestion,” he said.
“What?”
“Let’s talk for a while.”
“About what?”
“About you. About me. Get to know each other. After all, your mother thinks we have been dating. It would seem funny if I knew nothing about you.”
“You have a point,” I said and cautiously sat down on the sofa not too close to Gene. The light was dim with the magic curtain closing out the rest of the room. We were enveloped in shadows. “So tell me about yourself.”
Gene reached over and took my hand in his. “What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know, stuff like where you grew up, how many brothers and sisters you had, what your father did, if you had a girlfriend, or a fiancée, or even a wife—”
“No wife,” Gene said.
“But you had a girlfriend?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Oh, that’s terrific, Gene. So you had a girlfried, yet you were ‘boffing’ a caliph’s wife in the oasis.” I didn’t mean to get mad, but I surprised myself by sounding angry.
“Aha. You think I’m a dog of a man. That’s it, isn’t it? Because I was caught in a—shall we say, a compromising position by the caliph, you conclude that I am a Don Juan. Right?”
“What else can I think? You didn’t waste any time trying to get into bed with me.”
“I didn’t get into bed with you. We were on this sofa, and to get technical, I did more than try,” he said, grinning.
“That’s what I mean! It’s ‘gather ye rosebuds while ye may’ with you. Obviously I made a mistake this morning and I’m not about to repeat it.” My face was very flushed and my heart was beating fast. I had been a fool. Why couldn’t I have seen that before breakfast? Gene had used me to satisfy his sexual needs. I didn’t blame him, exactly. Maybe I had used him too. I jumped up.
“Hold your horses,” Gene said and didn’t let go of my hand. “Let me tell you my side of the story.”
“I think I’ve heard enough.”
“Now, Counselor, you’ve only listened to the prosecution. The defense gets a turn, isn’t that right?”
“I guess,” I said. “But I have to shower and change my clothes. Make it fast.”
“Come on, sit down. Hear me out.” He gently pulled me back down on the sofa. “First of all, when I was caught in flagrante delicto I was very far away from home.”
“As you are right now.”
“Yes, that’s true. Only in the desert—that desert—things were very different.”
Gene had been a stranger in a strange land, in a green desert oasis. Within it sat a gleaming white palace made of alabaster decorated with green jasper, yellow topaz, and blue lapis. He said he found it a far stranger land than even this one, in America sixty years in the future. The caliph who ruled the oasis had a troupe of midgets and circus acts who performed for his amusement. Wild tigers roamed the grounds. A favorite pet was a white elephant that had a golden bridle and a silken saddle. And a magus was called upon every day to dazzle the caliph with magic tricks for which Gene could find no explanation.
In that oasis he had met Haidee, who wasn’t exactly a wife. She was a young concubine. Haidee lived in the seraglio, the posh part of the caliph’s palace where the ladies of the harem lounged about a pool and spent their lives, not really prisoners but not free either. One day as Gene sat thoroughly bored on a bench in a central courtyard, staring off into space and thinking about how he could get back to his squadron, a small door opened. A beautiful young woman dressed in silky pants and wearing a veil stepped through it. She looked around to see if anyone else was nearby. Reassured that Gene was alone, she hurried over and fell on her knees in front of him. She was a tiny creature, maybe standing as high as his chest. The smell of jasmine enveloped him as she took his hands in hers. She unhooked her veil to reveal a face of breathtaking beauty. Her trembling lips were pink and moist. Tears glistened in eyes as soft and brown as a fawn’s.
Gene said hello. Haidee said hello back. She could speak a little English, although Gene couldn’t say anything in her language.
I felt irrationally jealous as Gene described the young concubine, but I sat silently as he continued.
Despite the language barrier, Gene came to understand that Haidee had been sold to the caliph, who had to be at least fifty years old, when she was thirteen. Although the separation from her parents was difficult, she felt it a great honor to have been chosen to be in the caliph’s harem. She lived in luxury and she had only “been with” the caliph a few times since she had arrived two years earlier. This infrequency, however, did not please her at all. She felt slighted by him and unhappy not to be his favorite.
By the time Haidee met Gene she was fifteen, a spoiled, bored, and lonely teenager looking for excitement. She wanted to run away to Bombay to become a movie star. Before she slipped away to return to the seraglio that first afternoon, she convinced Gene to come back and meet her the next day. He did, and every day after that. Their assignations became a routine. Mostly they played cards and backgammon. Mostly. Gene left the details vague, but he admitted they had been intimate and that he enjoyed her “company.”
Foremost in Gene’s thoughts, however, was to find a way out of the oasis and make it back to his unit. He asked Haidee if she could help. At first she hesitated, saying she didn’t dare because the caliph would kill them both if they were caught escaping.
Gene told her he wasn’t asking her to escape with him. He wanted to leave, and after all, he wasn’t a prisoner. He was a guest, so he wasn’t escaping, just leaving. Haidee didn’t understand that he was an Australian. Aussies have a can-do attitude and they figure they “can-do” anything. For example, a bomber crew that had crashed near Java decided to build a boat and row back to Australia instead of getting captured by the Japanese. They crossed hundreds of miles of open ocean before they rowed right into the Timor Sea and landed in Darwin.
Even though Gene’s squadron had flown out of Malta and there was no way he could return to that island, his plan was to reach the British troops up near Oran, Algeria. He managed to win a camel at cards from the stable guy and some food supplies by playing dice with the cook.
I broke into his story at this point. It was hard enough to hear about his dalliance with Haidee; now I was expected to admire his talent at gambling.
Gene looked at me hard and told me that his war experience had taught him that being a good gambler came in handy. He wanted to know why I was such a prude.
“I was raised a Methodist,” I said sourly.
“That explains it,” Gene said and unexpectedly kissed me on the cheek. Then he turned my face toward his and kissed me lightly on the mouth.
“We’re supposed to be talking,” I murmured with his lips still pressed to mine. They felt so soft and enticing. I had to really force myself to break away. “You’re presenting your case and trying to convince me you’re not a man without morals or scruples. So far you’ve failed. You’ve only convinced me that you routinely take advantage of women and like to gamble.”
“You’re twisting my words again, Ravine,” Gene chided.