Candy knew just what El Lobo was up to, with his pliant body and immobile gaze. She felt a warm rush of anger start in her stomach and rise into her throat. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to hear him react.
“Candy. We have a situation here.”
Candy looked over and watched as a stain spread across the sheet covering El Lobo’s lower half.
“That’s just a normal thing, honey,” Tammy said to El Lobo. “You get that warm water down there and it makes you want to go, right?”
She began to remove the wet sheet covering El Lobo, but her beeper went off. She checked the readout and handed the sheet to Candy. “I’ll call for an orderly,” she said, and left the room.
Candy looked at El Lobo, whose head was turned away. She left the room, threw the dirty sheet in the laundry chute and got a clean gown and fresh bedding from the supply closet. She looked down the hall for the orderly but no one was coming. She waited next to El Lobo’s door. After a few minutes, the orderly still had not come and Candy was angry. Angry at the hospital for making her take care of this when it was not part of her job, angry because El Lobo had to lie there in his own piss and stink. She went to his bed thinking that she would change his tunic first. That would be easy enough to do alone and by the time she was done the orderly would have arrived. But then she realized that if she did not change the bottom sheet first his new gown would become wet, and she’d have to do the whole thing over again. So carefully, as if handling something breakable, she rolled El Lobo onto his good side. He was heavier than she expected a person with most of his body missing to be, and he did nothing to help her. When she stopped pushing, he fell back so that he was prone again. Her frustration with him and his intransigence welled up and she was thinking of leaving, letting him lie in his own mess until the orderly arrived, when she noticed that his eyes were not simply closed but squeezed shut, like those of a child playing hide-and-seek.
Carefully, she pushed him onto his side again, this time bracing herself against his back as she inched the sheet out from under him. It was hard work but she was careful not to make any sounds that would cause him to sense her effort. She reached for a wet towel and quickly swiped it across the mattress, then shook out a clean sheet and managed to slip it underneath him just as he was becoming too heavy for her to hold where he was. She laid him back down and walked around the bed, working the sheet until it lay reasonably flat. Next, she undid his tunic and pulled it from his body. She plunged a washcloth into the bowl of now lukewarm water and gently cleaned him off. She wiped around his belly and his groin, reached under him to get at his backside. His soft, pale penis lay against his thigh as bald as a newborn puppy, but she did not take her eyes away. This was his body. It deserved to be seen. She dressed him in a fresh gown, holding him against her chest as she tied the strings. She knew that she could not grip him by the shoulders to lay him back against his pillows because of his pain there, so she kept her arms around his ribs and leaned him all the way down as if she were embracing him. When she pulled away, his eyes were open, and she saw, for a brief second, the arrow of his hatred for her and for everything that had happened to him bending back on itself and aiming straight into his own heart.
Marjorie was sewing at the machine when the power went out. It was ten o’clock at night, and the darkness was sudden and blinding. For a moment, both Candy and Marjorie froze where they were in the living room.
“Oh, shoot. I’m just in the middle of something, too,” Marjorie said, finally. “Get the flashlights.”
Candy felt her way down the hall and into the kitchen, struck by how frightening real darkness was. She felt a brief panic rise up. What if the power never came back on? What if they had to grope around in this darkness forever? She turned on the flashlights and brought them into the living room, glad to be near her grandmother again.
“It’s getting hotter already,” Marjorie said.
Candy opened the windows to the courtyard but when she went to the other side of the room to open the street windows for a cross breeze Marjorie stopped her.
“Thieves,” she said. “They just wait for times like this.”
Candy could already feel sweat forming in the creases of her underarms and beneath her breasts. She took one of the flashlights and trained it on the thermostat.
“It’s already eighty in here.”
Marjorie slid the material out from under the foot of the machine. “I guess I’ll have to do this by hand if I’m gonna be finished in time. Shine that light over here.”
Candy stood above Marjorie and trained her flashlight onto the pearly white silk. She watched as her grandmother struggled to thread a needle with fingers that were beginning to bend at odd angles like old trees.
“I need glasses,” Marjorie said, missing the eye of the needle and wetting the tip of the thread between her lips.
“Want me to do it?” Candy offered.
“I can thread my own needle, thank you. Been doing it more than half my lifetime.”
She was successful on the next try, drew out the thread, and tied a knot at the bottom. She adjusted the material on her lap. Candy watched as Marjorie attempted to work the needle through the material in the seed-size stitches required for the seam. The stitches were uneven, and Candy waited for Marjorie to stop or get out her seam ripper but she continued, her breath coming hard out of her nose as she pursed her lips. Candy felt heat rise in her face as she watched her grandmother’s awkward, determined work.
“The power will probably come back on soon,” Candy said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
“And if it doesn’t? I’ve got a bride here who’s not gonna care about my excuses if her dress isn’t ready in time.”
Candy tried to imagine the bride that her grandmother could see in this material bunched up on her lap. Was she short, tall? Full-breasted or flat? Was her grandmother conjuring up a beauty when the reality was far different?
“What’s she like?”
“Who?”
“The bride.”
“They’re all the same, you know. Just girls. They don’t know what’s happening to them. Oh! Oh!”
Candy saw the spot of red and snatched the cloth off her grandmother’s lap before the blood could spread any farther on the material. She reached for her grandmother’s hand. “Don’t move,” she said. “I’ll get a Band-Aid.”
When she returned from the bathroom, Marjorie was standing and holding the wedding dress out in front of her with her good hand so that it fell into its bodiless shape.
“It’s pretty,” Candy said.
“It’s beyond repair.”
It was impossible to sleep. Even with the windows open, the air in the bedroom was close, the heat making it almost hard to breathe. Candy lay on top of her covers, her arms and legs spread out so that her skin wouldn’t chafe. Marjorie’s bedroom door opened. Candy listened as her grandmother went into the bathroom, then she got up quickly. If she was quiet, perhaps she could catch her grandmother turning on the water. But as her hand touched the doorknob, she stopped herself and sat back down on her bed. “Get out! Get out! Come on, now!” she heard her grandmother say in the gentle, forgiving tone she’d used when she bathed Sylvie or when Candy touched her sewing material with dirty hands, as if their transgressions didn’t really bother her at all, as if she was grateful for the intrusion.
Three Girls
CONNIE WAS ALWAYS THE FIRST ONE AWAKE IN THE MORNINGS, and after dressing for school and making her bed, she went downstairs to the kitchen and poured out three bowls of Cheerios, sprinkling a bit of sugar over Paula’s so that she wouldn’t whine, her complaints threading themselves dangerously up the stairs. It had begun to snow the night before, and there was already an inch of the fine white powder on the windowsills. Jean came into the kitchen. She was seventeen and taller than most girls and some of the boys in the senior class. Connie had heard boys say that Jean had the tits to make up for her awkward height. Paula came downstairs, and the three girls sat to eat. Only Pa
ula had inherited the Nordic genes of their mother, her hair yellow-blond and straight, her face wide and pale. Connie and Jean were dark like their father, with deep-set eyes and the bruised circles below them that were impossible to erase with drugstore cosmetics. Paula played a game of fishing a single Cheerio out of her bowl with her spoon and watching it float in the moat of milk before eating it, as if it were a treasure she’d brought up from the bottom of the ocean. Connie wondered at her younger sister’s untroubled ability to commit so fully to every activity. As if you could eat a bowl of cereal or drink a glass of juice and that was all there was to it. When Connie finished her cereal she waited while Paula lifted her bowl to her lips and drank the last of her sweet milk. Then Connie washed and dried the bowls, replacing them in the cupboard and the clean spoons in the silverware drawer. She liked when the kitchen was arranged so you could not tell anyone had been there.
Jean packed Paula’s lunch and wiped the dribbles of milk from the table in front of Paula’s place. “Pee and brush,” she said to Paula.
“I already did,” Paula said. She was seven years old.
“Let me smell,” Jean said, leaning over her sister. She didn’t need to sniff Paula’s breath before Paula retreated to the downstairs bathroom.
“She just stands there, you know. At the sink,” Connie said. “She doesn’t brush.”
“I know,” Jean said. She slipped into her winter coat.
“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
“Why should I?” Jean asked as she walked outside. Connie watched through the window as Jean pulled the garbage cans down the drive to the curb. Connie filled Whisper’s bowl with kibble. The old hound struggled up from where he was lying by the heating vent, moved slowly to inspect the situation, then lay down again. Jean came back inside with the cold air, her cheeks and hands red. She refused to wear a hat and gloves even on the coldest days of winter.
“He’s not eating again,” Connie said, staring at the dog. “He needs to go to the vet.”
“You worry too much.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do. It’s a drag.”
Jean glanced toward the stairs, and Connie knew she was thinking about their parents. They would not want to be bothered with Whisper. “He’ll eat when he’s hungry enough,” Jean said. She smiled encouragingly and Connie felt her heart fill with gratitude for her sister. Jean could be mean sometimes, but Connie knew that she was only being sarcastic. When Jean passed her best friend in the hall at school, she’d call out “Hey, slut,” and her friend would say “Hey, bitch,” but they would be smiling.
Paula came out from the bathroom and Jean handed her the neon green parka that had been her own, and then Connie’s. Connie remembered her mother saying she’d chosen the unlikely color so that she could always find her children, as though it were easy to lose them. Connie thought her mother hadn’t much cared what color the coat was, and that she had not thought about the fact that her children would be called Caterpillar or Puke when they wore the jacket.
The girls walked down their street in single file along the narrow path that had been cleared by others’ footsteps. The snow was not deep enough for the plows yet. Cars drove slowly down the street, and the few people making their way from their homes to the sidewalks moved with careful steps. Connie had the impression that the world had become like an old person overnight, uncertain and expectant of danger. When they reached the elementary school, Paula ran toward the front door along with the other children. Connie tried to remember when she had run just to get someplace a little faster.
All morning long it snowed, and Connie stared out the classroom windows, paying little attention to the lessons. The relentlessness of the storm made the students edgy and impatient, and there was an unfocused excitement in the air. The bells ringing at the end of each period seemed louder and more disruptive than usual, and as the sky darkened, the brightly lit classrooms felt isolated, as if they were boxes of light floating in dark space. Anxiety slid beneath Connie’s skin like a worm. She looked for Jean in the hallways during breaks, but she couldn’t find her. Finally, a voice came over the PA system and announced that there would be an early dismissal due to the storm. Connie met up with Jean by the front door and together they made their way to Paula’s school, heads bent low as if to break through the wall of snow the way explorers might use machetes to cut down tangled brush in a jungle. Connie thought that Jean must be regretting her choice of shoes over boots and her missing hat, but Connie didn’t mention it. It was the kind of thing a mother would say, and Connie didn’t want Jean to put her down.
The family had attended the faculty Christmas party the night before at the president’s house. Connie’s parents taught at the local college, and every year, on the evening of the annual event, Connie’s mother made the girls dress nicely and reminded them to shake hands and look people in the eye so they wouldn’t look like a bunch of scared mice. At the party, the polished wood table was always filled with tureens of eggnog and platters of vegetables that no one ate. Paula got caught up in a game near the Christmas tree with some of the younger children. Connie was about to suggest to Jean that they go find a place to sit and wait out the party, but Jean started talking to a man with a gray goatee who wore a sweater with a snowflake design on it. Jean put her hand on the man’s chest so that her palm covered one of the flakes and the man laughed. Connie thought the man was disgusting, but Jean kept talking to him. Maybe Jean was trapped. Sometimes when Connie and Jean were at the mall, they ran into a group of seniors Jean didn’t like. Jean would look at Connie, her eyes widening meaningfully, and Connie would make up a lie about being late for her bassoon lesson so as to allow Jean to leave gracefully. Jean would smile conspiratorially as they walked away, and sometimes even offer a furtive high five. Connie wouldn’t mind so much that the older girls were probably making fun of the fact that she played the bassoon because she and Jean were a team. Sensing Jean’s distress at being cornered by the man with the terrible sweater, Connie tried to think of a good excuse that would allow Jean to save face. But then Jean traced her collarbone with her finger and drew her hand down over her chest and onto her belly. The man’s gaze followed along, as if tethered to Jean’s hand by a leash.
Even though she wasn’t hungry, Connie ate a fistful of baby carrots. Her mother stood at the far end of the table, watching as a man poured a bottle of liquor into the punch bowl. Connie’s mother put her glass into the stream. The amber liquid splashed over her skin and she and the man laughed as Connie’s mother licked her palm.
Across the room, the younger children were fighting, and Paula burst into tears. She ran to her mother and buried her face in her stomach. Nearby partyers looked over at the commotion. Connie’s mother juggled her drink while patting Paula’s heaving back, making a phony put-upon expression that was meant to ally her with the other adults in the room. There was always a moment at these parties when Connie’s mother’s behavior became cartoonish and broad, as if she were reading a storybook to children. Connie felt her jaw ache. She was clenching her teeth the way she did when she took a test at school.
Someone entered the room dressed as Santa and the smaller children took turns sitting on his lap. By this time Paula had calmed down and she leaned into the big man’s face, reeling off her list of gifts. Eventually, grown women sat on Santa’s lap and there was laughter and knowing hoots. Someone fed Santa a drink that dribbled down his synthetic beard. Connie’s mother slid onto Santa’s lap and he dipped her back as if he were dancing with her. She was wearing a skirt, and her legs fell open, and Connie could see where her thighs pressed together. When she sat up, someone said “What did you ask for?” and Connie’s mother said “I’m not telling!” and some-one else whistled. Connie felt her face grow hot with shame.
She found Jean, who was still talking to the man in the sweater. “I think we should leave now,” Connie said.
Jean put her arm around Connie’s shoulder. “This is
my sister who doesn’t know how to have fun at a party,” Jean said. Connie felt embarrassed but also proud that Jean’s arm was around her and that the man was looking at her with interest. Maybe she had saved Jean after all. Later, when they were home, Jean would invite her into her room and tell her all the stupid things this man had said. Her mother’s reckless laugh interrupted her thoughts.
“Where’s Paula? Did you see where she went?” Connie said. She looked around the room urgently. She knew they had to leave the party right away. She felt the same queasy sensation she got when she was riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair and her stomach went the opposite way from the rest of her. She heard her mother’s and father’s voices cut through the noise in the room, their tone biting and loud. Connie’s mother’s glass fell to the floor and shattered, shards winking in the spilled liquid like silverfish.
“Get the coats, Connie,” Jean said.
On the way home, the girls rode in the back of the old Volvo pressed low in their seat by the weight of their parents’ silence. Their mother’s head fell back against the headrest, her mascara pooling at the corners of her eyes. Their father strained forward to see past the windshield, as if he were looking for ghosts.
“You made it!” Connie’s mother said, when her daughters walked through the door from school. “I was wondering how you girls were going to get home.” She had pulled jars from the pantry and lined them up on the kitchen table. There were olives and tomatoes and tubes of anchovy paste. There was Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and artichoke hearts and tuna fish, peanut butter and apricot jam. “They closed the college,” Connie’s mother said. “They’ve closed the town.” She set her glass down and the ice inside it popped. The house smelled like the inside of the glass—a customary odor of sweet, tangy decay that lived in the cushions of the furniture and the curtains. “Snow day!” she said, drawing Paula to her in a hug.
Alone With You Page 6