“This is Sheba,” Dr. Penda said. “Come here, Roman. Say hello to the lady.”
Sheba sat perfectly still as Roman sniffed her all over, moving only when he tried to get his nose near the base of her tail.
“As if,” Dr. Penda said, laughing.
“Dude, not on the first date,” Ari said, drawing him back. “Sit.”
Jav had crouched down to let Sheba check him out. “She’s beautiful. Black lab?”
“Mix of lab and Rottweiler,” Dr. Penda said.
“Alex,” a woman’s voice called from inside. “Are you going to serve them on the porch? It’s freezing out, come in.”
Mrs. Penda was casually gorgeous in skinny jeans, black converse sneakers and an oversize cashmere sweater that might have belonged to her husband. She shook Ari’s hand, kissed Jav and ushered them into the large kitchen. The barista from Celeste’s was standing at the island, rinsing strawberries in a colander.
“This is my sister, Trelawney,” Mrs. Penda said.
“We’ve met,” Trelawney said, shaking Ari’s hand. “In my shop yesterday.”
“I remember.” Ari swallowed, tongue-tied, actually hoping Deane wasn’t around because one more beautiful woman at this party and he would be sporting wood. To be safe, he retreated a nonchalant distance and crouched down by Roman, petting him.
“Orange juice, Ari?” Mrs. Penda said from behind the refrigerator door. “Or I have cranberry juice. Or water. And coffee, of course. Which Trelawney made.”
“Of course,” Trelawney said.
“I’ll have coffee,” Ari said. “Thanks.”
Mrs. Penda shut the door. “You met my daughter yesterday, right? At the shelter?”
“Deane.”
“Yes. She had plans with her friend, Stella, today. Maybe they’ll be back before you leave.”
“No biggie,” Ari said, happy she wasn’t with Casey.
“Here you go, my man,” Trelawney said, setting a big mug down on the counter. “You can doctor it up yourself.”
Ari let Roman be and slid onto a stool at the kitchen island. Down at one end, Jav and Dr. Penda were drinking bloody marys, laughing and speaking Spanish: Jav like a machine gun, Penda slower and sing-song. Trelawney cut up fruit for a salad and her sister rummaged in a low cabinet. Ari peered closer. Perched on Mrs. Penda’s shoulder was a grey tabby kitten, clinging with all claws and mewing as her owner stood up and put a heavy skillet on the stove.
Trelawney’s cell phone rang, she put down her knife to take the call in the other room.
“Can I do anything, Mrs. Penda?” Ari said. “Or is it Lark-Penda?”
She threw him a dazzlingly pretty smile over her shoulder. “It’s Val. Short for Valerie. My husband is Alex and the cat is Esmeralda. You can take her away before she falls into the hot grease.”
Ari disengaged the tiny claws from Val’s sleeve, taking the opportunity to inhale some heady perfume and note the bra strap peeking out from the neckline of the sweater was dark red.
He sat down with his coffee again, letting the kitten crawl over him. Trelawney came back in, two spots of color up high in her cheeks. “That was the historical society,” she said. “They’re going to take the houses.”
“Oh thank God,” Val said, half turning from the stove. “All of them?”
“All that aren’t promised elsewhere. We’ve officially liquidated.” Trelawney caught Ari’s puzzled eye. “We’ve been trying to find homes for my mother’s dollhouses so we can renovate the gallery space. This is a huge relief.”
“Renovate it into what?” Ari asked.
“Not sure yet,” Trelawney said. “But it hasn’t turned a profit in years and it’s such a prime piece of real estate. It’s time to transform.”
“Trey loses sleep if she’s not turning a profit,” Val said.
“It’s time,” Trelawney said. “Keep the memory, let go of the thing.”
“What else is upstairs in that building?” Ari said.
“My brother’s apartment,” Trelawney said. “Which I rent for him. In fact, I was showing it to your uncle last night.”
Ari glanced at Jav, then back at the blonde woman. “What for?”
“To see if he wants to rent it.”
Ari stared, sure she was saying something significant but he was missing it. “Rent it for…?
Trelawney’s mouth twitched. “For the two of you,” she said. “Until you’re done with school. Come work for me and I might lower the lease a little.”
“Work for you at Celeste’s?” Ari said. “Are you kidding?”
“About coffee and books, I never kid, kid. I’ll need manual labor next weekend if you’re interested. Big estate sale with ten miles of bookshelves I want to pillage. Think it over.”
She picked up the carafe and refilled Ari’s cup. Esmeralda crept down from his shoulder and into the pouch of his partly-zipped hoodie. He zipped it a little more to keep her safe and she curled up against his stomach, purring. Beneath his stool, Roman sprawled out, nose on paws. The smell of bacon frying curled around the kitchen.
Ari sighed.
My mother’s dead.
He drew a deep breath and let it out. Yes, she was. And she’d want him to be somewhere safe. With people making him feel welcome. He was sure of it.
Eat, he could hear her say. God, you got so thin. Please, honey, try to eat something.
Trelawney put some cantaloupe in front of him. He ate it. Val squeezed past to get something out of a cabinet and her hand brushed his back. A mother’s hand. Strong and loving. He let it feel nice.
Sheba barked, Roman got up, the kitchen door swung open and Deane came in. She was followed by a pretty Asian girl, who was followed by a golden retriever wearing a blue vest.
“Bacon,” Deane said in a moan.
“You’re back?” Val said, looking back. “What happened to the movie?”
Stella slid onto the stool next to Ari. “I had an aura,” she said. “I had one last night, too, but Henry hasn’t given me any alerts. I don’t know, I got wigged out being in a dark theater so we came here.” She looked at Ari. “Hi, I’m Stella.”
“Ari. Hi.”
“This beast is Henry. He’s a service dog so don’t be offended if he ignores you. When the vest is on, he’s strictly business.”
Deane turned from the stove, juggling hot pieces of bacon in her hands and holding another strip in her teeth. “Hi, Ari,” she said around it. “You always catch me with food in my mouth.”
He couldn’t think of anything to say. Her hair was down, tucked behind her ears and sweeping across her back in all its Crayola colors.
“Oh my God, bacon is life,” Stella said. “Mrs. Penda, you’re the life-giver.”
“Call me Val or I’ll kill you.”
“I can’t. If I start, I’ll do it in front of my mother and she’ll wring my neck.”
“She’s so formal,” Deane said, putting strawberries and melon on a plate.
“I know, she was born with her ankles crossed,” Stella said. Her hand moved in slow strokes over Henry’s head. Ari was about to reach to pet him when he noticed the two circle patches on the dog’s vest. One was a caduceus surrounded by the words SEIZURE ALERT DOG/MEDICAL ALERT DOG/ON DUTY. The other had a black handprint within a red circle and a bisecting line. PLEASE ASK TO PET ME.
Ari kept his hands to himself and guessed Stella had epilepsy.
Val plated up bacon and took a tray of hash browns out of the oven. Trelawney pushed the bowl of fruit salad toward the center of the island. Nobody suggested or gravitated toward a table. Val tossed a stack of paper plates into the fray and everyone dug in, either sitting or standing.
“Scoot over,” Deane said, bumping her hip against Ari’s side.
“I’ll get up.”
“No, no. One cheek sneak.”
So they perched, each with half an ass on the stool and their sides touching while they ate. Friendly chatter in two languages around and over the counter. Bacon and
potatoes and strong coffee. Three dogs at Ari’s feet. Sandwiched between two pretty girls with a kitten inside his sweatshirt.
This was a fucking great party.
After Stella went home, Deane and Ari sat in the den watching TV. Or rather, Deane sat, holding Esmeralda. Ari prowled the perimeter of the room, looking at her artwork. A gallery of her life’s creations, starting on one wall with her kindergarten finger paintings and working around to her watercolors and paper collages.
“This is cool,” Ari said, running his finger along a narrow, vertical frame. Deane had outlined three portraits—herself and her parents—as if for stained glass or appliqué, then filled in each section using scrapbook paper. “It’s so…fine,” he said. “You have to work really close-up.”
“I like to,” she said. “I kind of fall into the paper. Leave everything else behind.”
He kept walking around, his arms crossed, peering up close then standing back. The light from the table lamps caught the shadows in his face as he moved, making him appear healthy and beautiful one moment, then gaunt and troubled the next.
Deane tried to remember if she ever saw Casey walk around the den’s walls as if he were at a museum. Come to think of it, she could barely imagine Casey at a museum.
Ari touched a black-and-white photo hanging in the middle of all the color. “Is this your dad?”
“Yeah.”
In the picture, Alex hugged Sheba’s head on his shoulder, his face turned slightly into her neck. His hair was longer, combed back from his forehead and spilling over his ears.
“That’s the day he got Sheba,” Deane said. “Love at first sight. My mother calls her The Bitch.”
Ari laughed, touching the photo. “He looks older here. Older and sadder.”
“He was going through a tough time.”
“Oh. Is he all right?” Ari’s finger traced the tattoos on Alex’s arms, and the long scar cutting across the crook of his elbow. Deane bit her lip.
“He’s fine,” she said.
But he wasn’t, she thought. He made that scar. With a knife. It was bad.
Ari came over and ran his hand over Esmeralda’s head. His fingers bumped Deane’s and moved away. “I had a good time today,” he said.
“I’m glad.”
“But it’s weird. Having a good time. You know? Like how can I possibly be enjoying myself when my mother’s dead?”
“She’d want you to,” Deane said.
“That’s what I told myself. Your mom’s real sweet. And I thought, Well she’s not my mother. But she’s a mother…”
He was so close to her. Their fingertips kept touching.
“I’m really sorry about what’s happened to you,” she said.
“Thanks.” He cleared his throat and stepped away. “I’m going to get some water. You want?”
“Thanks.”
She stretched full-out on the couch and closed her eyes a moment, filled with a guilty confusion and Sunday afternoon lethargy. Esmeralda curled in a ball on her chest, running like an engine.
Ari came back in, holding two glasses. “Sheba never leaves your dad’s side, does she?”
“Rarely,” she said. “He had to get her after Nine-Eleven.”
Ari heeled off his sneakers and sat in the recliner. Roman jumped up and lay across his legs. “Was he in the city that day?”
“No, my mom was,” she said. “She went downtown to meet a friend. For breakfast or something. She was on the subway when they began to hear about the first plane hitting. She was talking to my dad on her cell phone about it. Then she came up out of the subway and right over her head—whoosh—the second plane. She saw it hit.”
“Holy shit. How did she get off the island?”
“She ran south, along with everyone else. Jumped on one of the ferries to New Jersey. It took her the rest of the day to get home. And for a long time, cell service was down and my dad didn’t know where she was. That’s what messed him up. It triggered something that happened to him when he was a kid. He went into a bad depression afterward.”
“Wow.”
“He’s better now, he’s fine. But he still has nightmares. Sheba’s trained to help him wake up. She can sniff out anxiety like other dogs sniff out drugs.”
“What about your mom?”
Deane half-smiled. “Mom’s the strong one. Don’t get me wrong, she was shook the hell up. I mean she saw people jumping out of the towers. It was horrible. But it didn’t…stick to her. I mean, stick in the folds of her brain and just echo over and over. My dad couldn’t get away from it.”
Ari nodded. “I see.”
Do you? Deane thought. She’d never told Casey about the dark year after 9/11 when Alex went away from them.
“Bought a ticket to Crazytown,” was the way Alex referred to it now.
“All tickets to Crazytown are round trip,” Val always added.
Deane would pick up her cue: “And all rentals are short-term.”
They could make jokes about it. Val said as long as you could laugh at something, it couldn’t kill you. But Deane didn’t do much laughing while her father was renting a condo in Crazytown. She was twelve. And scared to death Alex had lost his return ticket.
During the day, she was armed with a handful of soft, factual sentences she could say out loud:
My dad’s having a hard time.
Dad’s a little depressed, but it’s going to be all right.
It’s just a tough time for him right now. It will get better.
Alone, out of the public eye, or in the dark of a sleepless night, Deane whispered things she couldn’t tell anyone.
I hear my father crying sometimes.
Dad’s going into the closet to hide.
My father had to go to the hospital.
My dad cut his arm with a knife.
I think my father tried to kill himself…
“Nodding off?” Ari said.
“Yeah.” Deane faked a laughing yawn. “Don’t take it personally. File it away under Sunday Afternoon.”
She did fall asleep. When she opened her eyes briefly, Ari had clicked off the TV and was lying back in the recliner, his hand on Roman’s head, his chest rising and falling with long, easy breaths. His face was turned toward her, peaceful and composed. His eyelashes made thick crescents against his cheekbones and his neck looked smooth and strong.
With a jingle of his collar tags, Roman yawned, turned his head and looked at Deane. He appeared to smile at her.
“Hi,” she whispered. “Isn’t this nice?”
She turned on her side, carefully putting the kitten into the crook made by her knees. Pillowing her hand on her cheek, she dozed off again.
When she woke, the recliner was empty and the house had sunk into a deeper level of quiet. Her parents must be napping too.
Or Doing It.
She sat up to drink some water and saw a piece of paper tucked under her phone on the coffee table. On it was a small, penciled sketch of her asleep with the kitten. Her mouth dropped open at its simple beauty. With its illustrative style, it was almost like a comic.
Underneath the sketch, Ari wrote, Filed under Sunday afternoon, and signed his name.
Her phone pinged. It was Stella.
Did u kiss him?
Deane smiled, her eyes rolling. No, she typed. We just slept together.
Val’s favorite aspect of dressmaking had always been the fine work. The intricate hand-crafting of lace and trim. Attaching a thousand bugle beads or sequins. The tiny, often invisible touches that took a dress from beautiful to stunning.
After napping off the huge brunch, Val went down to her shop to finish up a wedding gown. She took the veil and boxes of tiny pearls and glass beads to the easy chair by the storefront window, where she could both watch and be watched.
Trelawney came in through the back room, bearing a pick-me-up.
“Chocolate hazelnut latte,” she said. “Whole milk, no sugar.”
“Thanks, baby.”
Trelawney poked through the box of beads, letting them sift through her fingers. She picked up the hem of the veil and held it at arms’ length, studying the design. Then brought it up close, her perfectly-plucked eyebrows knitting. She let the hem fall with a sigh.
Sighing was unlike Trelawney. So were restless, fidgety gestures. As she stared out the window, her expression was hard and frustrated. Her fingers ran through her cropped bangs, drawing them into a straight line across her forehead. If her hair were black and her ears elongated, she’d look exactly like Mr. Spock. And just as the emotionless Vulcans felt an overwhelming, instinctive urge to mate every seven years—the Pon Farr—Trelawney Lark occasionally experienced a similar phenomenon. Every few years, her solitary, independent asexuality came unraveled into a basket of snakes, all writhing in a crazed desire for…something.
More.
Something more.
Something else.
“Needing?” Val said softly, taking a small scalding sip of her coffee.
Trelawney sank into the other chair, drawing her heels up on the edge of the cushion and wrapping arms around her knees. “Bad.”
Val hummed, looking out the window. She had her own Pon Farrs, usually around the turn of the season when it felt like her skin was peeling off, exposing the rawest parts of herself. Parts that wanted to indiscriminately fuck everyone and everything.
It was a hard, roving horniness, almost embarrassing in its frank need. Framed in guilt that Alex, besides being an amazing husband and father, was a sensational and ardent lover. Her life was blessed and superb in so many ways. Yet she had those strange phases of wanting more.
More what?
She had no idea, but it made her imagination tempt young men into her car with candy and puppies.
She had her coping mechanisms. The most effective one was simply to accept what was going on. She found feeding the beast made it tire out. So she read a lot of erotica, surfed a lot of porn, fantasized and jilled off at odd hours of the day. Attacked Alex in the middle of the night. Eventually her skin closed around her bones again and her libido came to its senses. Until the next turn of the season.
She had no idea if Trelawney’s Pon Farr was anything like it. Trelawney lived a clean, precise life where sex wasn’t a driving force. Still, Val knew her sister got lonely every few years. Bone-achingly lonely. Lonely to a fidgety distraction. No doubt it was the reason the dollhouse gallery would be empty soon. Trelawney needed a new project.
An Exaltation of Larks Page 24