The man in the garden bowed slightly to Penny, sweeping off his bowler hat in a gesture that seemed at once both extravagant and restrained. He took a seat on the bench next to her when she offered, pulling up his gray suit pants at the knees and unbuttoning the front of his suit-coat, and sipped the limeade and gin.
“This is not at all unsatisfactory,” the man in the garden said after a long silence. His voice had a curiously thick quality to it, as if he had only a moment before been eating spoonfuls of yogurt and honey.
“It's only limeade,” Penny said. The evening light was catching in her glass, making the limeade glow with an unsettling luminescence. She could see the man in the garden's socks where his pant legs had risen above the fine line of his leather shoes. The socks were a light pink, tastefully flocked in charcoal. His shoes were highly polished but marked by a water line just above the sole and over the toe, as if he had been standing a long time in damp grass.
“Just so,” the man in the garden said, “but you'll forgive me if I don't say I find it delightful. Adjectives tend to overstate the moment, don't you agree?”
Penny did not know whether she agreed or not, but they sat for a long time together and conversed while the last of the light slowly died out and fireflies replaced it with their drowsy, intermittent glow. When Penny finally went into the house, she stood at the sink and rinsed their glasses. She tried to remember what they talked about, but could only remember the fireflies and the scent of honeysuckle, another muskier scent and Qvack! purring at her feet. The man in the garden's glass held an imprint of his lips along its rim, as if his lips had been filmed with a fine gloss, and Penny touched a finger to the impression. She held the glass up to her face and inhaled deeply, but all she could smell was the tang of limeade and a faint, bitter trace of gin.
The next night, Penny brought drinks into the garden again and the next night after. Soon it became a ritual to sit on the bench and watch for the man in the garden's shadow solidifying from the deeper bank of the forest's shadow, to listen to the crisp rustle of his suit as he settled himself on the bench. One evening, Penny went out as usual and found the man in the garden already waiting for her on the bench with a little silver drink cart pulled up next to him. The cart held a variety of carafes and mixers and a plate of finger sandwiches, crusts removed, which seemed to pull all the evening light into their white squares.
The man in the garden rose as Penny approached and bowed his customary, elegant bow. “I thought I might repay your hospitality,” he said, expertly pouring her drink into a cut-glass tumbler and proffering the plate of finger sandwiches. “I find an evening snack a fine fortifier for spirits of all sorts, wouldn't you agree?” he said.
“I do,” said Penny, taking a bite of the sandwich which tasted airy and green. “I do, I do.”
Penny began to spend longer and longer evenings in the garden, often staying until the trunks of the pine trees began to grow gray and individual in the pre-dawn light. No matter how long she and the man in the garden sat on the bench, the liquid in the carafes never seemed to go down and there were never any fewer finger sandwiches on the plate. Yet, when Penny woke up in the morning, sometimes now sleeping into the afternoon, she felt clear-headed and relaxed. Only very rarely did she stand at her turret window and watch the wind rustle through the tops of the pine trees. The garden in the daytime seemed graceless and foreign. Its colors were garish and seemed to Penny as if they had been chosen out of a catalogue, pre-ordered from a set.
Max was also staying out later and later. During the day, he painted houses with Jenner and Paul. Sometimes, he would come home for dinner and Penny would suddenly remember that she had forgotten to eat all day and would pull together a macaroni casserole. They would eat together at the kitchen table, listening to the radio and talking a little, but Max was tired and spattered with paint. He would have paint in his hair, flecks of blue or gold, and paint in long streaks down the backs of his hands. He would have paint on his face and Penny wanted to smear it down along his cheekbones and over his jaw, but the paint was always dry and flaking. After dinner, Max would shower and go out to Newt's with Jenner and Paul and the girls they met there and danced with. Sometimes, Max would tell her, “Eat, mom, eat. You never eat anymore,” or that there were letters for her piling up with the mail. When he came home, Penny would watch from the garden as the light in his room flicked on and his shadow crossed in front of the window. She would watch his window after the light flicked off, but never for too long.
One night, Penny and the man in the garden were sitting in their usual spot having their usual drinks. Qvack! was stretched out next to the drink cart purring in the lingering heat that radiated from the patio tiles. “The summer is getting on,” said the man in the garden, taking a slim brown cigarette out of a silver case he carried in his waistcoat pocket.
“Yes,” said Penny, though it seemed to her that nothing had changed. The flowers were various shades of gray in the night garden, but they were all still blooming in their random, fervent bloom. The honeysuckle that immersed them didn't seem to have progressed at all in its conquest of the bench.
“Yes,” said the man in the garden and sighed languidly. “So too all things, don't you find?” he said and offered Penny a cigarette. As they sat together and smoked Penny heard the rattle of Jenner and Paul's blue truck as it pulled into the driveway. She heard the door slam and Max's voice as he called “Goodnight,” and something lower, more indistinct. The light in his bedroom flicked on.
Penny watched as Max's shadow crossed and recrossed the bedroom window. The light flicked out and Penny took the last sweet sip of her drink, holding the glass out to the man in the garden who unstoppered the carafe in perfect anticipation. Suddenly, another light impinged on the garden and Penny looked up, startled. The kitchen light was on and Max was leaning into the window, cupping his hand to peer out at her and the man in the garden sitting on their bench. He seemed to be very far away and the light in the kitchen cold and clinical. It made his features harsh, Penny thought. His brow was too severe and his skin washed-out, an unpleasant white.
“Oh,” said Penny, and her hand jerked a little, almost spilling her drink.
“Ah,” said the man in the garden, “this must be your son. Max, is it not? Your son, Max?”
“Yes,” said Penny. She recovered herself and sucked the few droplets of spilled liquor from her finger. “That's Max. Would you like to say hello?”
The man in the garden recovered his bowler hat from the bench next to him and put it on as he rose. He bowed toward the window and swept the hat down over his heart with a little military flourish Penny had not seen him use before. “Hello, Max,” he said and inclined his sleek, curly head in greeting.
But Max did not respond. He continued to peer out the window, leaning closer now. Penny thought the light not only made him look severe, but also featureless. She noticed he needed a haircut. His hair as it hung around his face made his head seem overly large, misshapen, and he was leaning in such a way that she couldn't see his body, only a vague, contorted suggestion. Max rapped on the glass sharply with his knuckles. He turned away from the window and switched off the light. The man in the garden turned to Penny and lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
“I'm so sorry,” Penny said, half rising herself. “Normally, he's a very polite boy.” Penny thought about it and could not remember whether Max was normally polite or not. It seemed to her that he wasn't, but the man in the garden sat down on the bench and put an arm around her to help settle her back in her seat.
“It's quite alright, my dear,” the man in the garden said. He was leaning close to her, peering into her face with an expression of kindly concern. Penny could smell the faint sweet scent of his breath. It smelled like grass, as if he had been grazing in a meadow, and she thought his teeth, which she had never particularly noticed before, seemed very large and square and white. “We are all so young,” said the man in the garden, looking over her shoulder and into
the unmitigated darkness of the forest. Then he laughed.
The next day, Penny woke late in the afternoon. Qvack! was sleeping curled at the foot of her bed and the light as it poured through her thin curtains seemed brash. Max was standing in the doorway.
“I've been calling you for a long time,” he said, frowning and pushing his hair back from his forehead. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Penny raised her arms above her head and stretched. The sheets rubbed against her nipples with a pleasant friction and she realized she was naked. It didn't seem to matter though and the light hurt her eyes. She sat up in bed and shielded her eyes from the window.
Max turned away and stared at his feet. He kicked the edge of her braided rug so it flipped back over itself and then smoothed it flat. “Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat and then stopping to clear it again. “There are more letters for you on the table. They look important. Official. I paid the bills.” He turned and started down the hall.
“Max,” Penny called after him. She heard him stop in the hallway. “We need to talk about last night.”
“What about last night?” Max said. From the way his voice sounded, Penny knew he still had his back to her.
“Well, you were rude last night, to my friend, and that is not how you're supposed to be. That's not what I taught you to be.”
“Jesus, Mom,” said Max and Penny heard the creak of the top stair as he started down.
Penny rolled onto her side and pulled the sheet up over her shoulder. She rolled a little further, onto her stomach, and wiggled until the mattress pushed her breasts apart and to the side of her ribcage. The sheets against her stomach felt cool and heavy, thick. “That is not what you are for,” she called after Max.
When Penny got up later that afternoon the light was already starting to thicken in golden rectangles across the floor. She stood in front of her closet looking at her clothes which hung in orderly rows above the hatboxes. Finally, she picked a thin, cotton shift, a slip which she had bought to go beneath summer dresses. It didn't seem to fit right, so Penny pinned it at the back with a line of hatpins. Max had already left for the evening. His dishes were piled in the sink and he'd run water over the plate which made the smears of ketchup and hamburger juice run pale and oily just below the surface. On the kitchen table was a stack of thick letters in manila envelopes. They were held together with a rubber band and Max had left a hot-pink Post-It note on top of the stack. It read: If you don't open these, I will. Penny unstuck the note and pressed her finger to the adhesive seam. She pulled the envelopes one by one out from under the rubber band and spread them over the table. The stamps were dark and thickly banded by cancellation marks. The letters had gone many places and been marked by them. Penny held one of the envelopes up to her nose and inhaled. It smelled like paper.
When Penny went into the garden that evening, the drink cart and the little plate of finger sandwiches were standing as usual by the bench, but the man in the garden was nowhere to be seen.
“Hello?” Penny called and looked around. The garden was getting darker earlier and the bowers of scuppernong and heavy honeysuckle vine were in complete shadow. The forsythia bush hulked a dark, unblended outline. Penny found herself grinning, an uncontrolled expectant smile, and strolled down the dark path toward the bench. “Hello?” she called again and the garden seemed to echo her. On the bench where she normally sat was a tented piece of heavy, ivory stationary. On the front of the stationary her name was written in a fine copperplate, but when Penny picked it up she saw nothing was written inside. Qvack!, who had been following behind her, croaked a rusty miaow and rubbed against the drink cart, causing it to rock slightly on its wheels.
A wind picked up in the forest and bent the tops of the dark trees toward the garden in a formal sweep. The pine trees tossed, creaking deep in their limbs, and then the wind passed into the hollyhock beds, chiming their silent bells, rustled through the nodding poppies, skirled a thick patch of creeping morning glory and lifted the hem of Penny's shift. The wind whipped the cotton shift around Penny's legs and slid coolly over her knees. She laughed and raised her arms, twirling a little as the wind suddenly flattened her skirts to her side and then died. When she turned to the bench again the man from the garden was standing behind it watching her.
“A place setting,” he said, nodding toward the ivory stationary which Penny still held. “I thought we could stand to be a little more formal, don't you agree?”
“Certainly,” Penny said, still laughing, though the sudden absence of the wind made the garden seem very still and quiet.
“Also a gift,” said the man in the garden. He came around the bench and presented Penny with a bouquet he had been holding behind his back. He bowed low before her, holding the bowler hat in place with one hand and presenting the flowers with the other. All Penny could see of him was the long, sleek line of his spine, the impeccable suit coat expanding slightly with each breath.
“Thank you,” said Penny, taking the flowers out of his hand. “They're lovely,” she said, though to her the flowers seemed slightly aggressive. They clung thickly to their stems and drooped over the edges of the bouquet in long tendrils that hung and swayed against her wrist. The flowers tapping against her wrist reminded Penny of a moth tapping out of the darkness against a lit window, insistent and softly destructive.
The man in the garden straightened and stood looking at Penny. He was silent and serious. Penny noticed his eyes, which she had always thought were a precise shade of blue, were really a dark brown. They were almost black and the man in the garden blinked slowly, his long, curling lashes resting against his cheek. “The summer is almost gone,” said the man in the garden. He took the bouquet out of Penny's hands and laid it on the little bench.
“Yes,” said Penny, “you've said that before.” She took a step closer to him, then another and the man in the garden pushed his bowler hat back on his head. A single curl unspooled itself on his forehead and Penny touched its tip. The curl bobbed and the man in the garden reached out to Penny and pulled her, for one quick, close minute, against him. Then, just as sharply, he stepped back, hissing and shaking his finger. He had pricked his finger on one of the hat pins that lined the back of Penny's shift. The man in the garden held his hand up between them and he and Penny both watched the bead of blood swell and break, trickling down his long finger and into the palm of his hand.
“Careless,” said the man in the garden, “Wouldn't you agree?”
“Yes,” said Penny, and the man in the garden reached out and brushed his finger over the front of her shift. His blood was black in the dark garden and marked her dress. “Yes,” said Penny, taking a step closer, “I would.”
When Penny came downstairs the next day, Max was gone again. The envelopes on the kitchen table had all been opened and one of the chairs was lying on its side. Penny sat the chair upright and opened a fresh tin of sardines for Qvack! who was sleeping in a patch of sunlight on the kitchen counter. Sheets of notepaper were spread over the kitchen table. They were filled with cramped handwriting on both sides and had been creased many times. Some of the pages had drawings on them: little figures of men and animals, an airplane, an ocean, something that looked like a single, unblinking eye. Penny dumped coffee out of Max's mug and refilled it with water from the sink. She stood over the kitchen table and sipped the water, stirring the pages around with her finger.
Qvack! jumped down from the counter and trotted into the living room, his tail held high, burbling a question. Penny looked after him and saw that the front door was standing open. “Careless,” said Penny, and flicked the edges of the white cotton shift around her legs. She went to the front door and started to shut it, humming a little tune that kept floating through her head. It was a cloudy day out, dim and shifting, and Penny noticed the crab apple tree's leaves were starting to turn. The small leaves were flushing red and yellow along their veins. The bigger ones were already curling brown and heaped around the tree
were soft, pitted apples. Bees hummed over the apples and Qvack! sat on the porch twitching his tail.
Penny hummed the last of her tune and started it again from the beginning. The shift, she thought, was the best of all possible dresses, but it was getting a little cold outside, making her legs feel stiff and thick. Suddenly, Penny realized that the tune she was humming was also now a tune she was hearing. It was bigger than the version in her head, full of brass and a heavy, thumping drum, but still the same song and getting louder. Penny stepped outside and down the porch stairs. She went around the crab apple tree and to the end of her walk. A wind picked up, rustling the dead weeds by the side of the road and sending a line of yellow poplar leaves spinning through the still, expectant air. Penny stood in the middle of the road and looked down it. Far in the distance the song gathered strength and form. A trumpet rose in a triumphant tinny spiral. Cymbals crashed and rung and crashed. Penny shaded her eyes and looked at the cloud of dust rising at the end of the long road. She watched the dust, which could be a parade or any other type of thing, as it traveled toward her.
A Beautiful Girl, A Well Loved One
Then, one day, she went into the forest.
This was a surprise to no one. What is the surprise when a girl comes to no good? Maybe how is a point of interest, maybe when.
She was an only daughter, much beloved, and beautiful by all accounts. Her grandmother, who doted on her, said she looked just like her mother when her mother was that age. Her mother, who had a long, disfiguring scar fissuring her face, said she had unusual coloring, should always make the best of her coloring, pay attention to the light, pay attention to warming fall tones, stay away from blues, particularly ice blue, and also her hair, what nuanced hair!, people would pay good money for hair like that, people did. Every year, the girl's grandmother would tell her she looked just like her mother at that age, until one year she didn't and from this the girl surmised the age at which her mother received her ruinous scar. It was younger than she had expected. Many things were left unsaid between them but the girl was a child, beautiful and beloved, and the house they all three shared back then was so small there was nothing to do but sleep tucked together like spoons, trading places over the years as the grandmother shrunk and the girl grew and the mother wiped her one weeping eye over and over with the hem of her skirt.
Mother Box and Other Tales Page 10