A Small Crowd of Strangers

by Joanna Rose

  His hands around her arms, pulling her up, and he started to step away, pulling her with him, and she said, “No.”

  She said, “Right here.”

  She pushed down the waist of his pants and let go of him with her hands but not with her eyes and tugged down her jeans, and her underpants, slipped them down to her feet and kicked them away.

  “Right here,” she said, his arm around her holding her, his mouth somewhere near her ear, his breathing everywhere, and he was fast and hard and quick, crying out, everything hard and wet and lovely.

  And then everything still. Beating like two heartbeats. Still and wet. Dripping and breathing. She wondered if he was thinking they just got pregnant, if he would say that, what she would say.

  He whispered in her ear.

  “Nice toes.”

  The way it tickled when he slid out of her all soft. The way Michael didn’t always smell like soap.

  She picked up her underpants with her lavender toes.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He turned at the kitchen doorway.

  She took her underpants in her fingers.

  “Drop these in the laundry basket?”

  She tossed them to him, damp, blue cotton, and he reached into the air and caught them and stuffed them in his shirt pocket, patted his pocket.

  The sky went blue, silver, purple, almost black, and the house was cold. She put on spaghetti water, Michael singing in the shower, clouds of steam floating out into the hallway. “Splish-splash, I was taking a bath.” His favorite soap was sharp smelling, sea smelling, Sea-Man, He-Man, Sloop-Soap or something. She dropped spaghetti into the water. Turned the thermostat up high. Went into the front bedroom and opened the box with the blue glass candlesticks from his Aunt Mary. This was her life. There was this perfect evening, her life before Michael nowhere to be found, it had happened to someone else. Back in the kitchen, the windows were steamed up, the spaghetti boiling madly.

  The shower stopped, and she called out to him, “So, sweetie baby?”

  “La la la la la Saturday night.”

  Her two fingers held a cigarette where there was no cigarette.

  “Tell me, darling,” she said. “My own true love.”

  She took a deep drag on her empty fingers, a deep drag that smelled like sex.

  She said, “Why is Lily so excited about coming over on Sunday night?”

  “Shit, I forgot to tell you.”

  He came out in his jeans, his shoulders still wet, his feet bare.

  “It’s kind of a planning get-together,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Spaghetti. Planning for what?”

  “An ecumenical men’s prayer circle.” He stirred the spaghetti. Drops of water clung to the curving small of his back. “When do we eat?”

  “An ecumenical what?”

  “It’s Rick’s idea. A group of men, different churches. There’s this other guy from Sacred Heart who’s been talking to Rick about it. He’s a deacon.”

  He took a noodle out and threw it against the wall, and it slipped down behind the stove.

  He said, “Does that means it’s not done yet?”

  “I think it means there’s spaghetti behind the stove. So, Rick and Lily, and Max Park? And his wife Angela?”

  She wanted to see her face in the window. She wanted to see his face in the window. She wanted him to be kidding about a prayer meeting, wanted him to say, Ha ha, it’s really just a poker game.

  “Just a little dinner, we’re going to talk about some ideas, and I want them all to get to know you.”

  He was not kidding. The window was covered in steam. It was cold in the kitchen, and she was standing there in her sweatshirt and her lavender toes, and her thighs were sticky.

  “Stir that,” she said. “Will you?”

  It felt like she was mad, but when she got to the bedroom, she just got her bathrobe off the floor and sat on the bed. The bathrobe was a silly long red thing with dramatic sleeves and black buttons. He’d rescued it from a garage sale, called it her Loretta Young robe. He was singing again in the kitchen, some Frank Sinatra spaghetti song, and she sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the crucifix above the door.

  Damn.

  Father McGivens had said, “Michael believes,” but then she hadn’t thought it mattered. She was afraid of how it mattered now, like God could step right into her kitchen and keep her from fucking her husband on the kitchen table. She decided to ignore it, practically hearing the words in her own head: I am going to just ignore it. She turned off the light and went back in the kitchen, to just ask him what that meant, an ecumenical men’s prayer circle.

  He threw another piece of spaghetti against the wall and it stuck there.

  “So,” she said. “What does that mean?”

  “I think it means it’s time to eat.”

  The phone rang, and she said, “Let me drain that,” and he answered it hello like he was still singing.

  “Angela,” he said. “Hey, you and Max coming over Sunday, right?”

  The beautiful copper colander had been a wedding present.

  “Five thirty,” she said.

  “Pattianne says five thirty,” he said, and then, to Pattianne he said, “Hey, sweet pea, she wants to know if you know what Lily is bringing?”

  “Sweet pea?” she said. “Cranberry bars.”

  “Cranberry bars,” he said. Angela said something that made him laugh. “Yes, we do. Okay, see you then.”

  He hung up the phone.

  He said, “She asked do we have a blender.”

  “Did you call me sweet pea?”

  “Sweet pea,” he said. “Get it?”

  Grandma Anthony used to call her that. Grandma Anthony, who didn’t even know her anymore, who was a Presbyterian, and thought it was silly that her mother didn’t want her to take the girls to Roselle First Presbyterian Church with her on Sundays when they were little.

  Father McGivens had said, “Do you believe you can uphold your husband’s faith?” She wondered if this was what he’d had in mind.

  She had never heard Michael say prayers, not before meals in the kitchen, not at night before bed. Sometimes he crossed himself, but it seemed more like something ironic, like when Mrs. Bryn told him on the phone that Claire had bought a brand-new SUV or when his debate team got paired up against the state champions from Minneapolis.

  She couldn’t fall asleep. Michael’s breathing was deep and even, and she got up and walked across the cold bare floors to the living room window. The night sky looked so still. It wasn’t. The stars were ancient explosions of huge brilliance and there were stars beyond stars, so many stars that it made her stop thinking.

  She tried reciting the Lord’s Prayer. It was so familiar and easy she could say it without using her brain at all.

  Michael wanted to run to the store for half-and-half.

  “I’ll be right back,” he promised.

  “No you won’t. You’ll end up talking to that lady.”

  Michael loved chatting to that store lady for some reason. And he wasn’t back, and it wasn’t even five thirty when there were three quiet knocks on the front door.

  First was his nose.

  She said, “Michael just ran up to the store.”

  It was a long, straight hatchet of a nose. The setting sun cast a sharp shadow onto the east side of his face.

  “Please come in,” she said, and Herman Walter ducked his head forward and stepped through the doorway and swiveled at his Adam’s apple, leading with the nose, left, right, left.

  “I’m Pattianne. I’m Michael’s wife.”

  He wiped his hand on his pant leg and said, “I’m Herman Walter.” Kind of a squeaky voice for such a tall guy.

  “Please,” she said. “Come in. Have a seat.”

  He took two long steps and then he bent at the knees and folded himself into the chair next to the green deer lamp. She switched on the lamp, and Herman Walter swiveled his head back and looked at the d
eer’s leery, lit-up face.

  “Can I fix you something to drink?”

  A crooked smile, one side of his face spasming northward.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Michael will be back in a minute.” Damn it, Michael.

  Herman Walter nodded once, twice, blinked once, twice. His eyes were palest watery gray.

  “A cup of coffee?” she said.

  His eyebrows reached toward each other in the center of his forehead.

  “Coffee,” he said, “makes me sneeze.”

  Then Angela came in, her husband Max right behind her, Michael right behind them. Angela wore a plaid dress that buttoned up the front with huge white buttons over her huge breasts. Angela and Max were the same height, same blond hair, him skinny, her curvy all around, how some couples end up like that, matching in spite of themselves. She handed him a round straw basket, reached her hands out to Pattianne and said, “Pattianne, I am so pleased to finally be meeting up with you,” and gave her hands a squeeze.

  “So,” Angela said. “You and my Max have met, am I right on that? And Herman, how are you doing?”

  Herman Walter never looked at Angela Park. His nose was pointed in any direction except where Angela was. She perched her curvy self on the arm of the couch and took off one blue high-heeled shoe.

  “So,” she said. “How you liking Minnesota?”

  She looked inside her shoe, turned it over, and shook it. She said, “I could of swore there was a rock in there.” And she put it back on.

  Max said hello to Pattianne and hello to Herman Walter, who said hello to the ceiling light fixture, and Angela stood back up and took the basket out of Max’s hands.

  “So,” she said, “Lead me to your blender.”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have.” Uh-oh. “You should have just brought yourself.” Too late now. “Right in here,” and Pattianne took the half-and-half from Michael, who stood by the door grinning, the happy host, and she and Angela went into the kitchen.

  Angela set her basket on the counter, looked at the table. “How pretty, all those different blue dishes. That is so cute,” and she took out a bottle of dark rum, a can of apricot nectar, and a jar of home-canned peaches. She took out a bottle of ginger ale, too, and winked.

  Pattianne picked up the peaches and said, “Boy, I bet these are good in ice cream.”

  “You can use store bought,” she said. “But these are special, for tonight. I call this drink a Kris-and-Rita. Got ice cubes?”

  She poured rum into the blender, and then the apricot nectar, and then she dropped in the ice cubes.

  There was knocking on the front door, Reverend Rick and Lily, hello hello in there, and then Lily came into the kitchen. She set two square Tupperware dishes on the counter next to the blender and looked right at Pattianne, and said, “Hello, Angela, what’s that?”

  Pattianne shrugged her shoulders.

  Angela spooned peaches into the blender and said, “Hey, Lily.”

  Lily snapped the Tupperware lids off and said, “Well. I couldn’t decide. These are cranberry bliss bars. These are apple dream bars. I hope no one’s allergic to nuts.”

  “Me too,” Pattianne said. “Hope no one’s allergic, I mean. Herman is, but to coffee. Herman Walters.” And she took out glasses, seven. Three matched exactly.

  Angela hit the button on the blender, and Lily shouted over the racket of the ice cubes, “Just ginger ale for us,” and Angela winked again.

  Lily shouted, “I’ll see what Herman’s having.”

  Angela turned off the blender while Lily was still shouting, and Herman said, “Just water, please,” from the living room.

  Angela said, “You want to be turning the blender off after just a little bit. You smash up the ice cubes too much it waters down your Kris-and-Rita.”

  Lily was a little pink in the neck. She went in the living room and said, “Herman? Water? Rick? Max?”

  Angela started pouring foamy pink Kris-and-Ritas into the glasses. “We used to listen to that Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge album a lot,” she said. “So romantic.”

  “Just water for Herman,” Pattianne said.

  Angela took a square of tin foil out of her basket. There was a tangle of thin curled orange slices and slices of green honeydew melon, all speared together with colored toothpicks. She balanced one on the top of each glass. Herman’s water and the ginger ales too. Pattianne set the drinks on a round metal tray painted with a pink rose.

  “How pretty,” Angela said. “May I?” And she picked up the tray, balancing it easily on one hand, waitress work in her past somewhere, and she went into the living room.

  Pattianne followed with the Famous Impressionist Paintings cocktail napkins.

  Rick and Lily took their ginger ales off the tray, and Rick said, “This is so fancy, Angela. Ginger ale, right?”

  And Angela said, “You bet, Reverend Rick.”

  When Angela handed Herman Walter his glass of water, all decorated up with orange curl and honeydew, he took the glass in his long fingers and said thank you to the deer lamp.

  “Why, you are welcome, Herman,” Angela said. “And here,” and she took Manet’s Olympia from Pattianne and handed it to him.

  Herman’s head swiveled. His Adam’s apple bobbed in and out.

  Angela sat herself on the arm of Max’s chair. “So,” she said. “Isn’t this nice?” She raised her glass. “Here’s to Pattianne and Michael. Welcome to St. Cloud.”

  Pattianne raised her glass back at her. Rick and Lily sat next to each other on the couch with their knees lined up straight, and Pattianne sat down next to them, sitting slowly so the couch cushions wouldn’t sink all one way. Lily tucked her elbows in. Michael stood by the bookcase, leaning, and raised his glass, happy. What a happy-faced bunch. Except Herman. Except Lily.

  Lily said something about the purple sweet gum trees, and Rick said something about Vikings defense, and Michael said how they’re hoping his folks could come for Thanksgiving, and Lily said, “Fall rummage sale,” and Rick said, “No defense last year,” and Michael said how they might expect to see the northern lights this weekend, and that in the southern hemisphere they’re called something else. The Kris-and-Rita started out being tart and ended up sliding down all sweet and rummy.

  Rick said, “Aurora Australis.”

  Lily said, “Folding tables.”

  Michael said the lake perch in the stores here was so fresh it wiggled, and Angela wiggled on the arm of Max’s chair and said, “Wiggled, aren’t you clever.”

  Herman Walter watched the heating vent closely. He said, “There are twenty-four churches on our list.”

  Angela shook the ice chunks in her glass.

  Rick said, “Does that include the Seventh-Day Adventists?”

  “Yes,” Herman Walter squeaked. “And the Western Baptists.” He actually looked at Rick. “The Western Baptists,” he said, “would probably not attend.”

  An amazing Adam’s apple.

  “The Western Baptists,” he said, “would definitely have to be invited.”

  Michael’s Kris-and-Rita had settled into layers of pink and yellow.

  “You don’t want to insult the Western Baptists,” Herman Walter said. It was as if his voice were only just now starting to change.

  Pattianne’s glass was just foamy pink ice.

  Angela sat still until she caught Pattianne’s eye, another wink, and tilted her head toward the kitchen, a quick blond bounce.

  “Excuse me,” Pattianne said and stood up, carefully, not jostling the couch cushions. They were all reflected in the window glass. “I have to check the chicken.”

  Angela stood up and said, “Me too, let me help.”

  “The Ryersons are Western Baptists,” Herman Walter said. “They own the St. Cloud Daily News.”

  Michael said, “Let me write down some notes.”

  The chicken bubbled all oily gold in the broth, and Pattianne ladled broth over each piece. Angela poured more rum into t
he blender.

  “Angela, you and I are the only ones drinking Kris-and-Ritas.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she said. She poured in apricot nectar. “And I can tell you are the type of gal can keep up.”

  Pattianne felt a warm rush of pride and sprinkled brown sugar over the chicken.

  “What’s this?” she said. “Brown sugar? Now, I’m sorry, hon, I don’t mean to snoop, just let me get at them peaches, I won’t even watch.”

  “Snooping? Looking at my chicken?”

  Angela hit the button on the blender. Lily would be sitting all straight and worried in there. When the blender was quiet again, Angela said, “A girl’s recipes are a private matter. They’re between her and her mother.”

  Pattianne slid the pan back into the oven and leaned against the warm door. Her mother didn’t even use recipes. She just cooked, and they just ate, every night her father saying, Very nice dinner, Mother, and she and Jen would say, Yes, Mom. Unless Jen was stoned. Then she would wax prolific upon the glories of their mother’s dinners, the chicken, the green vegetable, the starch.

  Pattianne said, “I got this recipe out of the New Jersey Junior League Book of Cookery.”

  There was Joy of Cooking, too, and she had taken both to the store, trying to figure out how much chicken to buy for seven instead of four, and there was way too much, she could see, which was probably okay. She didn’t have to put it all out.

  She said, “I added ginger.”

  “Well, it’s not like I asked, but since you mentioned it, ginger?”

  Pattianne turned off the burner under the potatoes. “Fresh ginger.” A huge pot of potatoes. “Grated.”

  Angela dropped more ice cubes in the blender. Her fingernails were short and painted bright red.

  “Well,” she said. “Fresh ginger. Aren’t you clever?”

  Cuticles too, bright red. She laid a wet hand on Pattianne’s shoulder.

  “And generous too. A generous soul.”

  She took her hand away and leaned against the counter.