by Molly Giles
“And when exactly are they pruning your particular twig?”
“That’s up to the voters. It’s a good little library. There’s a bond to save it.”
“Right. And the car? Running all right?”
“Fine. The radio doesn’t—”
“That radio was always lousy. How are the brakes?”
“The brakes are good.”
“I had those brakes relined, you know, before I sold you the Lincoln. Gus down at Sergio Brothers said they’d be good for another three years.”
“Yes, I know, I remember, and thanks, they’re—”
“And Nicky? Doing brilliant work in third grade?”
“Second. His poster was chosen for the Halloween contest and—”
“Good, and Neal? Old Neal still framing frames at the frame shop?”
“I don’t really know what Neal does at the frame shop …”
“Good. Good. Nothing like mystery in marriage. He still taking all those vitamins?”
“Vitamins, minerals, acidophilus, antioxidants, algae. Yes.”
“Well. I owe him a phone call. Tell him I’ve been busy. I’ll get to it tomorrow. There was something else I wanted to ask you, Kay … but can’t think of it now. Ta.”
“Ta. But Dad? Hold on. I think I solved the mystery of who sent Mom that house plant. It was my friend Zabeth. You met her last spring.”
“Oh yes,” Francis said. “The sex fiend.”
“She’s not a sex fiend. She’s a licensed masseuse.”
“A rose by any other name, Kay.”
“Dad! She’s putting herself through law school.”
“As well she should. Anyway, it’s not much of a ‘mystery’ is it. It wasn’t who sent that plant that puzzled me. It was what kind of plant it was in the first place.”
“It’s a bleeding heart.”
“Can’t hear you.”
“I’m whispering because I don’t want Mom to hear. It’s called a bleeding heart.”
“Catchy,” Francis said. “Takes me right back to me carefree Catholic childhood.”
“Kay,” Ida called, “is that Francis?”
“It’s odd, you know, but I can hear your mother’s voice more clearly than I can hear yours,” Francis said.
“Well I’ve been whisperi—”
“Francis!”
“The voice of my master. Better put her on.”
“Okay. Nice talking to you, Dad.”
“Not at all.”
Kay was sweating as she handed Ida the phone. Talking to Francis was hard work. “How can you stand it?” she wanted to ask, but Ida was flushed and sparkling, her red lips pressed into a firm pretty line as she said “You rat” into the receiver. Kay bent to kiss her goodbye. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she promised as she headed toward the door. Behind her she could hear Ida saying, “What do you mean you don’t think you’ll be coming tonight? I need you and I need my round silver mirror and I need”—here she gave Kay, in the doorway, a mischievous look and dropped her voice—“my G-I-N.” She blew Kay a kiss and Kay waved back, dismissed. She was halfway out the door when she heard her name and turned back. Ida, the phone cupped with one hand over the receiver, leaned toward her. “He’s checking the liquor cabinet,” Ida said. “But before he comes back—I’ve been wanting to ask you all day—where did you get that smashing outfit you’re wearing?”
Kay looked down at the wrinkled white blouse and pleated plaid skirt with its terrible fringe held in place with a tarnished brass safety pin. “You gave it to me.”
“I did?”
“You bought it in Scotland.”
“I thought it looked familiar. It was extremely expensive. But itchy.”
“How do you know? Did you wear it?”
“Oh, you know how it is when you’re traveling, you get so sick of your own clothes. But Kay? Thank you. I’m glad you wore it today and I’m glad you came to see me.”
“I’m glad too,” Kay said, helpless with the truth of it, stuck in the doorway.
“I love you darling, now … What? Francis? Well if you can’t find any G-I-N, look for some V-O-D …”
That wasn’t so bad, Kay thought as she backed out to the hall. Not fun exactly. But survivable. I had an actual three-and-a-half-minute conversation with my father. And Mother said “Thank you.” She tried to work up a small glow of accomplishment as she stepped into the elevator, but the glow faded as she realized she had entered a service elevator by mistake. Two doctors moved aside to give her room; both were dressed in paper caps and smeared smocks and Kay saw too late that the wet stuff dripping to the floor was human blood. She stared at the door until the elevator stopped and they filed out. Their blue plastic booties left dark footprints and she decisively turned in the opposite direction down an ill-lit hallway lined with pipes. Her steps boomed on the concrete floor and she heard the sounds of machinery somewhere in the distance. She came at last to a heavy corrugated door marked EXIT and pushed it open with relief only to find herself standing outdoors in the cool autumn twilight, completely enclosed in a cement courtyard ringed with loading docks. The door clicked shut behind her. She was alone and—she tried the handle—locked out. She looked up. The hospital rose in tall walls of windows above her. Ida was behind one of those windows and could probably look down and see her. “Francis!” Ida would cry on the telephone, “Kay is trapped and turning in circles.”
“Nothing new there,” Francis would point out.
Kay shook the Merit 100 she had stolen from Ida out of her cuff and put it to her lips. Too bad she didn’t have a match. Then everything would be perfect.
Two
It was dark by the time Kay got home. She could smell West Valley as soon as she turned off the freeway—the damp woodsy kick to the air, the whiff of dead skunk, the undercurrents of horse manure and wild blackberries. She walked up the cottage path with the groceries—lamb chops and raspberries, rosemary and cream. She would make a feast tonight for their anniversary, she would trick Neal into celebrating. In the bag too, a fifth, not a gallon, of good, not cheap, red wine. She would be a better wife, a better mother, and a better alcoholic.
Nicky met her at the back door, swinging the stuffed animal he was too old for. “You’re in trouble,” he sang. She nuzzled his hard little head and breathed in his day—the dinosaurs he’d drawn instead of writing down the spelling words in his workbook, the butterfly he’d watched instead of the ball on the soccer field, the long dreamy route he’d taken along the creek instead of coming straight home.
“Stop gloating,” she told him. “Where’s your dad?”
“He gave up on you.”
“He what?” Kay grabbed for her son but Nicky giggled and wiggled away. She caught him, kissed him, and gave him the bag of groceries to unpack in the kitchen. He tore through to the bottom, looking for cookies. He had quick clever hands, long-fingered, like Francis’s. He had Neal’s thick bangs, Victor’s pink cheeks, Ida’s clear voice. Nothing of hers. He’d be all right.
She looked up as Neal came in. “Don’t tell me you’re still buying that poison,” he said. She looked down at the innocent carton of milk in her hands and tried to remember the article Neal had made her read in Prevention magazine. Cow’s milk damaged bones, teeth, skin, and, if she remembered correctly, caused a form of liver disease not unlike cirrhosis in children.
“It’s low-fat,” she offered. Neal shook his head. He measured something dry and green from a box in the refrigerator, stirred it vigorously into a glass of purified water, and swallowed it down with his face squinched up. Pitiful, Kay thought. You’d think someone who valued their health so much would like their life a little more. She handed Nicky a box of animal crackers under the counter and watched him tiptoe backward out of the kitchen. “I thought we could have a nice dinner,” she began, but Neal shook his head again.
“Maybe tomorrow night. But it’s too late now. Nicky had cereal and I’d just as soon fast. I read this new study. You’re not suppose
d to put anything on your stomach after six.”
“But it’s our anniversary,” Kay protested.
Neal looked at her, genuinely astonished. “It is?” His voice wavered in its reedy censure, broke. “Oh babe. Why didn’t you remind me?”
“I thought you’d remember.”
“No.” He stared down at the scummy residue in his glass. “No, I didn’t.”
Kay reached in her purse and pulled out a card. “Well, I didn’t do much about it either. All I got you was this.” Self-pity spasmed inside her as she turned to the sink and started to rinse Nicky’s cereal bowl. Neal stood silently behind her. She knew he felt bad. He had always given her something on their anniversary: jewelry, or new sheet music, or dinner out. They used to toast each other with champagne cocktails at Le Petit Jardin and then order garlicky escargot and melt-in-your-mouth sweetbreads and lovely gold and green purees of baby thises and baby thats; they’d hold hands and make plans for trips they’d take, remodeling they’d do, gardens they’d put in. But all that was gone now. All this last year, Neal had been distracted. At first she’d believed him when he said it was business worries that weighted him down, made him too tired to go out, or talk, or make love. But his mysterious weariness had gone on for month after month and finally she had to face the truth: He didn’t love her anymore. She’d been a fool to think anyone could. Maybe her skin exuded some invisible chemical repellent. Maybe she was repellent, heart and body and soul. Neal wouldn’t tell her what was wrong and when she stormed he said she was “spiraling” and “insecure.” Well who wouldn’t be insecure? She sniffled, wiped her nose with the back of her wrist, and watched the evening’s first tears splash effortlessly into the sink. “What’s happening to us?” she asked.
Neal came up behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders, and leaned close to her cheek. “Nothing’s happening,” he said as he always said. “We’re fine. I’m worried about the shop is all.”
Kay thought of Neal’s shop: Sorensen’s Art Supplies & Framing, a dusty high-raftered storefront in a reconverted stable in downtown West Valley. She had always loved the big room with its clutter of brushes and paints. Prints and posters swung from the ceiling in bright banners and old photos and oil paintings lined the walls. It smelled good in Neal’s shop, like sweet chalk and turpentine and charcoal, and the acoustics were great. The last time she’d gone in, Neal had been blasting the World Series, but he also had tapes of her playing Beatles songs, with Nicky singing along in a brave off-tune voice. The shop didn’t make much money, barely enough to live on, but Neal had never cared much about money; that was one of the best things about him.
“Is there something there I could help you with?”
“What could you do?”
“I could do whatever you want. Frame. Mat. Charm the customers.”
“No.”
“Just no?”
Kay looked down as his hands trembled along the length of her arms, carefully avoiding contact with her breasts. She had never liked Neal’s hands; they had always reminded her of rat paws, with their glaze of fine white hairs and deep-set narrow nails. But she had liked other things about him. The way his eyes closed up when he smiled. His gentle fussy kindness to children and animals. His niceness. Neal was—used to be—the nicest man she’d ever met. She touched an age spot on the back of his hand she had not seen before. “This is Kay’s old old man,” Francis had said, introducing Neal to some friends at a cocktail party at his golf club. “I’m just her father.” She remembered Neal’s eyes darting toward her, his smile faltering as the other men laughed. He had seemed frightened then, and he seemed frightened now. She brought the age spot to her lips and kissed it.
“Things will get better,” Neal promised. “I know right now is bad. I’m preoccupied at work and you’re under a lot of pressure too.”
“The concert,” Kay nodded.
“No, I meant your mother. Her dying.”
“She’s not dying.” Kay pushed back, puzzled. Didn’t Neal know Ida at all? He didn’t seem to. When he’d first met her parents he had turned to her, eyes shining, and pronounced, with conviction, “Your father’s a genius and your mother’s a sweetheart.” She should have known then that Neal could never help her. “Mom will live forever,” she explained. “Dr. Deeds says she’s got the heart of a twelve-year-old. She’ll be in a wheelchair for life, but it’s going to be a really long life.”
“Oh babe.” Neal sucked in his breath. Kay stood silent, stubborn. After another second, he released her. “Well,” he said, “happy tenth.”
“Ninth.”
“Really? Seems longer.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean … oh forget it.”
Neal trudged back to the living room and Kay threw the sponge into the sink. Charles Lichtman bicycled through her brain, shot her a heart-stopping smile, and disappeared, his rose-colored bandanna fluttering behind him. She sighed, fished the sponge out, and finished rinsing the dishes—thick brown and white dishes Neal had used during his long stint of bachelor life. She soaped and rinsed the flatware Francis and Ida had given her when they bought a new pattern. The griddle she wiped down on the Wedgwood stove had belonged to Neal’s mother. In fact all the appliances in the kitchen had belonged to Neal’s mother; she had lived in this cottage until the night Neal told her he was getting married, whereupon she had a quiet, tactful stroke and died. Kay folded a dish towel and hung it back on the rack, then refolded it and hung it a bit straighter She often caught herself doing things like that for Mrs. Sorensen’s approval, and sometimes when the house settled she imagined she heard a heavy step and felt Mrs. Sorensen’s round eyes in steel-rimmed glasses rest dimly upon her. She had liked the old woman and didn’t mind trying to please her ghost. It was child’s play after years of trying to please Francis and Ida.
Still, some willful displeasuring was in order once in a while, wasn’t it? She opened the bottle of expensive Bordeaux, poured a full glass, and drank, frowning at the faded plaid paper on the walls. She had taken the ruffled curtains down long ago and repainted the cupboards; she had refinished the dining room table and bought a new bed for their bedroom. She had transformed Mrs. Sorensen’s sewing room into a music room; it was just big enough for her baby Baldwin, and with the door closed and his earphones on, Neal could watch television without having to hear her practice. Nicky’s room was redone, with dinosaur decor wall-to-wall. But most of the cottage was as it had been in Mrs. Sorensen’s time, a warren of low-ceilinged rooms with a musty stench to them. The best thing about the place was the wide front porch that looked out onto the street, and the creek and woods in back.
She saw Neal enter the back yard now. She narrowed her eyes, wondering how she would see him if she didn’t know him. A tall man with bad posture and a thick grey ponytail in a faded Jefferson Airplane tee shirt—someone’s bachelor uncle, gentle and solitary. From this distance you couldn’t see the gold lights in his eyes or hear the catch in his voice when he said “Oh babe.” Curious, Kay watched him pause under the porch light to pick mint leaves and drop them into his pocket. He would take them to the shop tomorrow and boil them on his hot plate and make a piss-colored tea which he would sip as grimly as hemlock, pausing only to take his pulse. When had this unwholesome fixation on his health begun? When the fertility doctors told them his sperm count was so low that Nicky’s conception must have been a statistical miracle? He had taken that news with his usual stoicism, had promised her they’d adopt when they could afford it, and had refused to talk about it since. When his biggest client died of a seizure he had become a vegetarian, and when the owner of the shop next door died of pancreatic cancer he had started taking massive vitamin supplements. But he hadn’t really started to proselytize about nutrition until Ida’s second or third amputation. Her illness made him ill, Kay decided. His fear of it. She refilled her wineglass. If Neal ever had to live a day in Ida’s body he’d get a lesson in courage and endurance that would probably k
ill him.
Oh what was the matter with him? with her? with them? Other couples didn’t live in silence or go for months without sex. When was the last time they had made love? Labor Day? Victor and Stacy prayed together, hand in hand, every night in front of their waterbed before tumbling into the missionary position. Zabeth and her lovers soaped each other up with chocolate guck and licked each other off in her candlelit shower. Even Francis and Ida were sexual; Kay had grown up to the rhythmic squeal of their bedsprings. Every morning when Francis left for work Ida tipped her face up and he kissed her goodbye on the lips with a sweet little smack that rang through the house like one of Chopin’s trills, and every night when he came home he whistled to her from the front door and she whistled back.
Neal and I should move, Kay thought. She turned from the window and dried her hands. We should sell this house and his shop and go away. Start over in Oregon or Colorado. Get away from all these role models and family ghosts. Nothing’s keeping us here, not really. Mother needs help but she doesn’t need my help specifically. She has Dad on the weekends, Greta during the week. “I don’t know what I’d do without you”—Ida had always said that, but it didn’t mean anything. She said it to everyone. She could get an ad out tomorrow, Kay thought, and replace me. Wanted: Dum-Dum for Grande Dame. No Skills Needed.
She filled her wineglass again and began to leave the kitchen. As she reached for the light, she saw Neal’s card lying on the table where he’d left it. It was a silly card—a picture of a prince embracing a princess over a slain dragon. The prince had a familiar weight-of-the-world slump to his shoulders, the princess was hamming it up, clasping her hands and batting her lashes, and the dragon had one eye slyly open: the whole effect was meant to be lighthearted, but it fell flat. Kay was ashamed of it and ashamed of the sentiment inside: “To My Hero. You Saved Me.” It wasn’t true. Never had been. If she had any hero, besides the Jamaican laundress who had finally let her out of the hospital courtyard, it was still, for some stubborn, perverse, unimaginative reason, her father: Francis X. McLeod. She wondered why, after all these years, she believed she could call him from jail, from Mars, or from the bottom of the sea and he would come to her rescue. He had not even come to her wedding. Ida had been in Emergency that day with a cracked tailbone from a fall during her tango class, and Francis had been at her side, practicing his putts on the floor.