A Small Crowd of Strangers

by Joanna Rose

  An enormously fat woman at the counter said, “Hot enough for ya?” and she said, “Yes,” and worried that the heat was a lot worse for someone like a fat person.

  Back in front of the house, three boys on bikes were skidding back and forth in the gravel, raising a cloud of dust and then skidding through it. She drove through the dust and got out, and then Michael rode up on his new-old bike. The boys circled and watched him lean his bike against the side of the house.

  He said, “Hey, guys,” and waved, and they waved back, and he said, “Hey, girl,” and he kissed her. He was dripping sweat, and his face was evenly, brightly pink.

  She took out a can of orange juice and handed it to him.

  He touched it to his forehead, went, “Ah,” and held it to the back of his neck, and said, “Sweet Jesus. So, how’d it go? At the library?”

  “Well, it kind of didn’t. She wasn’t there. And I didn’t stay.”

  “She wasn’t there?”

  “It was creepy in there,” she said. “It stinks, for one thing. Junk food.”

  “Oh,” was all he said.

  “Well, I stopped by that bookstore. I think I like it. I think I’d rather work there.”

  “Are you going to make another appointment at the high school?”

  “How about a nice screwdriver?”

  He changed into cutoffs and a white T-shirt and bare feet, and came back into the kitchen where she sat at the table, chopping at the frozen clumps of orange juice in the pitcher.

  “You’d really rather work in a bookstore?”

  “It’s a really cute little shop,” she said. “And Simon’s wife is very nice.” She sounded like her mother.

  He poured vodka over the ice cubes in the two glasses she had lined up, ready, waiting. She sipped at one of the vodkas.

  “Man, I have a headache,” he said. “They just yesterday finished varnishing the floors on our wing. It stinks, whatever they put on there. Here, let me.” He took over chopping at the orange juice lumps and looked down into the pitcher.

  She said, “I love that smell.”

  “The smell?”

  “Varnish,” she said, and added more vodka to the ice to bring the glasses up to matching levels. “You want a Tylenol?”

  The only cool part of her was her fingertips touching the glass. She didn’t want to move, except to unstick the back of her legs from the kitchen chair.

  “No,” he said. “That’s okay.” He didn’t usually take Tylenol and stuff like that. “Here,” he said. “This is mixed up enough,” and he poured orange juice into the vodka. A frozen lump splashed onto the table. She picked it up and dropped it into her glass and sucked her fingers.

  Michael sniffed at her. “Are you wearing perfume?”

  The smell of incense was still in her hair.

  “No.” She picked up one glass. “Not really.”

  He picked up the other, and he sat down across from her. He touched his glass to his forehead, said, “They’ve had all summer to work on those floors,” and drank his screwdriver halfway down.

  “There’s potato salad.”

  “Maybe later,” he said.

  “Cheese and crackers? Summer sausage?”

  “That sounds good,” he said. “Maybe after a while.”

  “Do you know what ufology is?”

  “What what is?”

  “Ufology.”

  “Ufology?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “Here,” and added more orange juice to his screwdriver. “Potassium.”

  He added vodka. “Varnish,” he said. “Potassium chaser.”

  After the orange juice was gone and the potato salad eaten, after the house and the outside had grown dark, had grown hotter, she went into the bedroom and hit the light switch, and there was that clean, shining black window. No more vines. No hazelnut tree. She switched the light off again, turned back through the door, and bumped into Michael on his way in.

  She said, “I need to hang something over that window.”

  “Why?” He put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back into the room.

  “You can see right in. That kid Frankie cut back those vines and stuff back there.”

  Onto the bed.

  He said, “Nobody’s out there.”

  His hands were sticky with orange juice.

  He said, “Just leave the light off.”

  His mouth was orange-juice sticky. His skin was shining white, sweat slick in the dark room’s closed-in heat, his fingers vodka clumsy with her shirt, pulling it up. He didn’t even have his cutoffs all the way off and he was hard, and he fucked her hard, drunk hard, and it seemed like fun, get drunk and fuck your husband, until he said, “Maybe we just made a baby.”

  And when his breath fell into sleep, she whispered, “Michael?”

  Stars were thick in the sky out the window. The sheet was damp and twisted under her, and Michael’s skin was too hot to be near, and she was fucked sober and wide awake.

  She whispered, “Let’s not talk about babies yet.”

  There was no moon that night.

  Michael woke up early, too early, even for him, and he went into the shower for a long time. She stayed in bed, the morning light finally coming into the room through the shiny, empty window. Mist from the shower started to gather on the glass, no more air in the room, and she got her feet on the floor and got the hammer from the dresser and tapped at the edges of the window frame, where it was painted shut with years of white paint.

  Michael came in from the shower, a red towel wrapped around his waist, and he said, “Stop,” kind of loud. He said, “Is there any Alka-Seltzer?” much more softly.

  “There’s no air in here,” she said.

  “Hangover,” he said. “I have a hangover.”

  “I’ll get you some Alka-Seltzer.” She set the hammer on the windowsill. “It was probably the varnish.”

  The bathroom cabinet was a shoebox-size space behind the mirror, but on a shelf in the hall linen closet was the extra toilet paper and Epsom salts and Rid-X and Alka-Seltzer. A box of tampons. At the bottom of the box of tampons, beneath the neat rows of paper tubes, was her last flat, round, blue plastic dispenser of birth control pills. She used to keep them in her underwear drawer, until she found out that Michael liked to run his hand around in there, in the silk and nylon, when he was in a sexy mood, when the drawer was open.

  She didn’t know what he thought on those nights like last night when they didn’t use a condom. That it was just not the right time, or maybe he was hoping. She took the Alka-Seltzer out and closed the linen closet door and went into the kitchen, no sun in there yet, and filled a glass with water and dropped in the tablet and watched it fizz.

  When she went back in the bedroom, he was at the mirror, humming a tune, a pretty, old tune, and when she handed him the glass of Alka-Seltzer, he took the glass, and took her hand, and he stopped humming and kissed her wrist.

  “My angel,” he said.

  He drank the Alka-Seltzer down, and she sat on the edge of the bed and watched his throat, his Adam’s apple, his long, narrow waist. He handed her back the glass and picked up two ties.

  “What do you think?” he said. “Blue stripes or blue diamonds?”

  “Wear the Donald Duck tie.”

  “Too soon,” he said. “I have to establish control. I wear that tie too soon, I won’t get no respect.”

  She didn’t like either one of those ties. “Blue diamonds.”

  He turned back to the mirror and smoothed his fingers through his hair. His back was long and tan and there was fine black hair down low, where his hips curved, where the red towel covered him. Water drops on his skin.

  “Are you looking at my butt?”

  He took the towel from his waist and wiggled his butt at her. Then he turned, and he smelled like soap and shaving cream, and he tasted like toothpaste, and it was a slow, easy kind of fucking, and he watched her face and said, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” each time he
slid deep into her, into where she could still feel him from last night, into where she was still wet from last night.

  She pulled him down, onto her, held him deep so he couldn’t move in or out, or look in her face, and then she could make him come, and then she could come when he came, because she could never do that looking into Michael’s beautiful face, could never come when he came.

  5: A GENEROUS SOUL

  Neat khaki shorts. Neat black cotton slacks. A neat blue sleeveless dress. She took everything out of her closet and tried it all on. She looked like a middle-aged librarian from New Jersey. She finally left the neat blue dress on and went out the kitchen door.

  The road was lined with triangle-shaped trees. When there was a gap in the trees, she crossed to the other side of the road to stay in the shade, zigzagging back and forth, aiming for shade, until she got to a row of storefronts and windows, the genie on his turquoise cloud still two blocks away. Her feet were sweaty and slick in her shoes, and the armhole of the neat blue dress rubbed her armpit. She pulled her hair up on top of her head and wished for an elastic.

  When she pushed the door open, she wished for a sweater.

  Elizabeth was jingling around at the desk, and she stood up straight, looking across the tables of books, pressed her hands together in front of herself, and made a very slight bow and said, “Hot as hell, huh?”

  Today she was dressed all in pale green, loose pants gathered at her ankles, and a long, green top with draped folds, sleeves like wings. The round gold symbol slipped in and out of the folds.

  Above the door was a mobile of cranes, moving like small, real birds in the draft. The ceiling over the door was painted light blue. To stand in that doorway and look in—to be allowed to be there, under the cranes, in the cool, scented air—was to pause. And Elizabeth paused too and waited for her to pass through the portal into her bookstore.

  “Sit down here,” she said.

  Pattianne sat on the tall stool by the desk.

  “I’m doing returns,” she said. “These are books I’ve had here for a year, and I’m returning them to the publisher for credit.” She held up a small book, about four inches square. A book on Jewish mysticism.

  “Not a hot seller,” she said. She held it in her palm. “Beautiful book, though. And only six dollars. I like these little ones. Pocket classics. It seems like someone should be willing to take a chance on it. It’s so small.”

  Pattianne wanted it. It was so small.

  “So,” Elizabeth said. “Want to just get to know some stock? You can just wander around and look. Pick up books, look at them, read the covers. Touch them.” She put the small book in a big box. “Do you want some tea, or some water?” She reached out and touched her cheek. “I can feel the heat coming off you,” When she took her fingers away, the coolness stayed, for a moment.

  “Well,” Pattianne said, and got down off the stool.

  Elizabeth picked up another tiny book, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and put it in the box. There was a whole stack of tiny books—a short, narrow stack of many tiny books.

  “Are they all going back?”

  “With my fond farewell,” Elizabeth said, and picked up another one. “Away the little darlings go.” She touched the book to her forehead. “Go find someone to love you.” And she put it in the box.

  Other books, on a table next to the desk, were arranged around a black porcelain tea set with six handle-less cups. Books about Japanese tea ceremonies. Six books on white wire stands in a row, one book next to each cup. A long black feather lay on the table in front of the row of books and cups, lay there like it had always been meant to end up on that table in Elizabeth’s bookstore.

  It was a soirée at the home of the principal. Joseph Garrison stood next to a wildly blooming scarlet trumpet vine. She remembered him from the first faculty get-together. He’d teased her about looking sleepy, and she’d tried to blame the heat. She wandered over to him.

  “So,” he said, “everyone is here.”

  It was cool in the grass, down by her feet.

  He said, “So how’s the New Age business?”

  He was the third person to call Lamplighter Books a New Age bookstore.

  “What does that mean, really?” she said. “New Age of what, the Age of Aquarius? It’s all pretty ancient.”

  “Ha.”

  Joseph had been eating the crudités with the roasted garlic spread.

  He said, “Very funny, Age of Aquarius. I haven’t even heard those words for at least twenty-five years—and quick too.”

  “It’s my feet. They’re cool.”

  This was a no-kids party. There was a keg of beer called Goose Island, and there was white wine in huge, round wine glasses. No vodka, though, and no orange juice.

  “Seriously,” she said.

  He said, “Don’t ‘seriously’ me about Elizabeth’s bookstore. Not with her over there doing the Priestess of Delphi number on your husband.”

  Elizabeth was standing across the garden, wearing a long, straight dress, a string of coral beads around her neck and sandals on her feet, no bells. She did look a little Greek, with her long dress, but not with that cloud of red hair. She and Michael stood next to each other, and a couple other people. Elizabeth’s two small hands held one of the round wine glasses. Michael had beer. He was telling a story. They all watched him.

  “Okay,” Pattianne said. “Let’s talk about the weather.”

  The cloudless sky was stained a clear red. The sun was down. The humidity was closing in.

  “Fabulous,” Joseph said, and looked straight up. Red sky reflected in his glasses for a moment.

  “Too hot. When does it start to cool down around here?”

  “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I just teach it.”

  A mosquito whined around her arm and she slapped at it, and white wine sloshed onto her dress.

  Joseph said, “Nice move.”

  The wine didn’t show, lost among green leaf designs in the material, besides it being white wine.

  “Don’t you teach biology?”

  “And one class of poetry.”

  “Biology and poetry?”

  “The language arts teacher is afraid of poetry.”

  He touched her elbow.

  “Wander aimlessly,” he said, and he steered her out into the middle of things. “Mr. Smith,” he said. “Coming our way. Don’t look.”

  A teenager in a black apron with a tray of empty glasses headed toward them.

  “I said don’t look,” he said.

  The grass was smooth, like walking on carpet.

  “Earth sciences, second term,” he said. His fingers on her elbow were a light touch. “First term, I get their attention by teaching them about sex. Second term, I poison their minds by teaching them evolution.”

  They moved together around and through people who seemed to be saying hello without stopping their conversations.

  “Who’s Mr. Smith?”

  A girl in a black apron filled their glasses with white wine from a carafe and then turned away, working her way through all the people, leading with her carafe. She wore a long-sleeved white shirt, a black bow tie, and black slacks. The carafe sweated. It made Pattianne hot just looking at her.

  She said, “This is really sweet wine.”

  “Riesling,” Joseph said. “A nice little breakfast wine. I must say, it goes well with your dress.”

  The buffet table was draped in white, laid with white china platters, little food things, silver tongs, forks.

  “Carrot coins,” Joseph said. “That usually means we’re in the vicinity of artichoke-heart dip. Mr. Smith is the one back there talking to the woman in the red dress. He’s probably lecturing her on the evil of red dresses.”

  Pattianne picked her hair up off the back of her neck, wanted an elastic, a hair clip, short hair. There were three women in red dresses and one that was a kind of a rose color.

  “Which one’s Mr. Smith?”

  “School cha
plain,” Joseph said. “Aha.”

  He picked up a small bowl of green dip and said, “Grab those carrot coins.”

  She dropped her hair back down onto her neck and picked up the dish of carrot coins.

  “Right this way,” he said, and they were moving again, this time toward Michael and Elizabeth.

  “So. You don’t get along with the school chaplain because why?”

  “I happen to like red dresses.”

  He held his wine glass with the stem hanging through his fingertips, the bowl of artichoke heart dip in the palm of the same hand. He took a carrot coin from the dish and dipped a glob of the dip. All this as they moved through the grass, as he said hello, nodded hello, laughed hello. He never faltered. Never sloshed. She was in the presence of a master.

  “Do you dance?” she said.

  He held up the carrot coin. “Not only do I dance,” he said. “I dip.”

  “And this big kid,” Michael was saying, “in third hour, suddenly leaps from his chair, the chair goes over behind him, slam, and he yells out, ‘You’ve got to make up your own clichés!’” And everyone around Michael laughed. To get back to Michael, from all the way across a party, always seemed like a matter of perfect timing.

  Elizabeth stretched up to her toes and kissed the air next to Joseph’s cheek. He sniffed her hair.

  “Sandalwood,” he said. “Very nice.” And to Pattianne, “I told her, Patchouli is illegal east of the Rocky Mountains except for in Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

  “Pattianne,” Michael said. “This is Rachel, this is Martin, this is Harold. My wife, Pattianne.”

  My wife.

  Martin and Harold said hello, and Rachel smiled, and they all looked the same, laughter left on their faces from Michael’s story.